UFC 124 Main Card: Could Thiago Alves Be The Perfect Fight For John Howard?

Pretty heavy questions surround UFC 124, and it's more than just asking if Josh Koscheck can end the four-fight win streak of current UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre.

To me, there's also the question of how it is that the battle of Sean McCorkle's Twitter feed vs. Stefan Struve elevated both men to co-headliner status when Struve was a part of the second prelim fight of UFC 117 — notwithstanding the KO of The Night bonus, which may be the answer to why he's there — whereas McCorkle literally opened up UFC 119 with a Technical Submission win over Mark Hunt.

In my eyes, Joe Stevenson's return to action against Mac Danzig would be better as a co-headliner -- not that I'm not anxious to see if McCorkle can make his name at the expense of Struve, the latter of whom might just be viewed as "inconsistent" with a loss to the prospect this Saturday.

Of course, then again, I would definitely have to say that perhaps we should direct our focus to the fight that will open up the PPV broadcast.

I could only be talking about the bout between The Pitbull, Thiago Alves, and John "Doomsday" Howard.

Now why would any of us care about this fight?

I mean, isn't it always a possibility that Alves doesn't even make weight and probably gets fired afterward, a la Efrain Escudero?

Of course it is, and it probably will happen despite Thiago's camp speaking to the contrary, but what if Alves does make good on his word and makes weight?

What if we get the Thiago Alves whose only real flaw at UFC 100 was simply the lack of good takedown defense?

Not only would I like to see a healthy, physically fit Thiago Alves in the cage on Saturday, but I'm going to say that he will come out looking like he still wants a crack at the gold, and that he'll look as though he can go the distance.

Ask me what I think about the bout itself between Alves and Howard, and I'll say the same thing that St-Pierre has said about Koscheck:

I couldn't have hoped for a better Welterweight war or pure sluggers.

That's the one key in this fight that many have caught on to but few casual fans might understand: Alves and Howard favor their striking first and foremost, and that says something when you note that Howard has six submission wins on his record and not one of those six wins was a tapout due to strikes.

Surprisingly, Howard's record shows four TKO-type victories, with three of those four stoppages being actual KO wins, but even up against Alves and his eleven career wins by TKO, that only makes striking a paper disadvantage for Howard.

Then again, even the judges' scorecards don't go by who had the advantage on paper.

Alves may definitely be the stronger striker and the better built fighter, but Howard could be the more diverse striker, and he may prove to stylistically be as much a nightmare for Alves as Jon Fitch or GSP were.

Like I said, they do favor their striking first in their own rights, so one may expect that they exchange more than once, but what could win Howard the fight is what I feel Alves lacks, which is the capability take the fight to the ground without necessarily striking and if need be, submit his opponent.

Then again, being Brazilian alone doesn't get you a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

I'd say in every zone apart from the Wrestling aspect, Thiago matches up rather well with Howard, but only one man will walk out of Montreal the winner.

Considering the challenge in front of him, it's quite possible that Howard could be that man.

After all, this bout seems tailor-made for Doomsday, and that could be trouble for the Pitbull.

** As posted on Tapout Passout