Lightweight submission specialists Thiago Tavares (13-2) and Kurt Pellegrino (15-4) will tangle at UFC 88: “Breakthrough” at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Ga. on September 6.
It’s a match up between two 155-pound fighters who up until recently were in the title hunt. However, recent losses for both fighters have temporarily dashed those hopes, making this showdown super important for the winner — it will get him back in the mix much faster.
After bursting on the UFC scene with two straight wins, Tavares created quite a buzz — he was being touted as a possible threat to the champion. However, he has since come back down to Earth, losing two of his last three fights. And the last one — a knockout defeat courtesy of Matt Wiman at UFC 85: “Bedlam” last month — was a huge setback.
Pellegrino was dominating his last fight against Nate Diaz at UFC Fight Night 13 back in April; however, he made one small mistake and the resilient Diaz was able to capitalize and lock in a fight-ending triangle choke in the second round. It was a bitter pill to swallow — he was really putting it on Diaz prior to the stoppage.
“Batman” really needs a win here. He has historically rebounded from a loss with a win. The only problem is that lately he has been inconsistent (Loss, win, win, loss, win, loss).
This match up will top the preliminary festivities, which means that there is no guarantee it will air on the pay-per-view (PPV) broadcast. To check out the rest of the UFC 88 card and rumors click here.
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THURSDAY MORNING CONVERSATION WITH KEVIN:
My final thoughts on affliction. I’ll concede just because I don’t need roy following me around like a kid lost at the mall! I think affliction did more than 25,000 buys, and always thought they would, I was trying to make a point that Fedor isn’t a U.S. draw, but never figured I’d get called out! I truly hope affliction succeeds, and wish them luck, and have to give them credit. They have told the truth about “cooking their books.” What I mean by that, is saying it was a sellout, and actually buying more than 25% of their own gate. 1. why would you do that? 2. why would you tell us? It’s like mania buying 1000 dollars worth of t shirts. telling us their are only 500 left when in reality, they bought 250 themselves. It’s a perfect way to act like they sold out, as well as the perfect way to lose money. So when the PPV #’s do come out, if they do, I won’t be convinced that they are for real!
I was very excited for the affliction card, and very let down. I’ve never complained or been dissatisfied with an mma ppv or event (other than kimo/thompson on cbs), but was extremely let down by affliction. Can someone tell me, without mentioning Fedor’s 36 seconds, what was good about affliction. AA! Better yet, tell me what made it worth the money and time. AA looked great, but one fight wasn’t worth the 45 bucks!
overall, it’s sad to say that affliction will fail, but I really like the whole WAMMA idea. My last question is this: if the WAMMA is truly unaffiliated and not an organization, just an unbiased championship for top fighters, why is GSP/Fitch not for the wamma WW belt? They are the 2 top WW’s in the world, so if WAMMA goes by their own model, this should be for the title. It will stink of bias if all of a sudden affliction gets another title from WAMMA. They are stacked with HW’s, but have no one in the top 10 of any other division!
no offense, i think wamma belt is a stupid idea. first of all, who the hell are they to have the authority to hand out belts? Just the fact that Trump is taking pictures with the belt and handing them out makes me already think that its biased since he’s all involved in Affliction. Why don’t they just come out with an Affliction belt? I could see if Affliction, the promotion had a belt, because thats their own little world. But now they want to give out another strap to people of all orgs claiming to be unbiased. Everybody already knows how good Fedor is, so him holding a belt doesn’t really mean anything. To me, a wamma belt is just another belt. Them trying to do the unbiased authority thing is just for attention and to gain some kind of leverage in the industry that they are new in.
not trying to be a jerk kev, u da man. i agree theres something sneaky about the numbers they’re reporting. gaurentee Fedor is getting paid millions. makes me think, they’re less than successful.
just wanted to add, if Affliction – NOT wamma had 1 HW belt (for now), THAT would be the holy grail for HW division.
KEVIN. ive stated this on another thread, but will do so again. affliction is only going to be able to put on an event every 3 or four months, cuz youre right they dont have anyone huge outside of hw. the ufc, with its deep stable of fighters and stars, will be able to put on a live, free event everytime affliction announces a ppv event. its great for the fans, but eventually it wont be for affliction. i liked their 1rst event( i watched it 1rst then the ufc replay), but i think they probably blew their wad on the 1rst event. atencio has already stated that there will be changes, not only to the production, but to the payscale as well. he said the fighters will have to work with him and not use affliction as a “cash cow”. think the fighters will go along with that? me neither. once you pay them that much once, they are always gonna want that much or more. plus the thing you mentioned about affliction buying $500k of their own seats is not a good thing for them. this happened because affliction was selling tickets for $40 a pop, even the $500 and thousand dollar seats on the night of the fight and affliction paid the rest. how do you think that makes the fans feel who paid that much for their seats only to find out later that they could have waited till fight night and paid about 90% less. i wonder how many vegas fans are gonna wait until fight now to buy their tickets if they think they can get them for that cheap. im starting not trust this atencio guy to much, he’s got a little snake in him. he “fudged” on the live gate, whos to say he’s not doing the same with the ppv buys. the bottom line is, while i like what affliction is trying to do, they are most likely gonna fail. the ufc just has to much of a strangle hold on mma in the u.s. right now.
good comment bw, i agree he’s a snake!
Give the man some credit! He is partially responsible for Fedor vs. Sylvia and Fedor vs. Arlovski, fights Dana would never deliver!
Not enough is known about him to be calling him a snake! I appreciate what he is trying to do!
here’s the thing john, I respect most of your opinions. when it comes to affliction, you’re jaded. while I enjoy watching Fedor fight, your man crush on him makes your opinions biased. I’m looking at facts. Cooking the books, lying about fedors pay etc. Dana didn’t give in to Fedor’s crazy demand. The difference is, he doesn’t have to. He can afford to put on a free card (bad as it may be), whenever he wants. He basically is allowing another company to bankrupt themselves and in return, we get fedor fights. It’s cool to me, but in another 2 years (probably less) fedor will be in the UFC. You also said he doesn’t have to go to LHW, thats why he doesn’t, but why not? There are a lot more interesting fights for him there than there are at HW. After AA, then what, barnett. I’d rather see nog, chuck, machida, silva, wand etc. It’s not like Fedor is this specimen as far as shape, 20 pounds would be nothing for him!
comment by john!
Nogueira vs. tito ortiz for the Wama LHW title
(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by kevin
2008-07-24 10:06:50
mypoint exactly. how could it be for the wamma title? it’s not an affliction title, it’s an unbiased title going to top fighter in division. neither of these are that!
*
*you just don’t make sense John. you hate on tito as much as you love on Fedor, but then want him to fight for the unassociated, unaffiliated unbiased belt? what about the “top” LHW’s? thats who WAMMA is supposed to be appealling to!
i saw a pretty good blog on a good way for affliction to succeed is by if only having an event every 4 months, they should make it an hw extavaganza. instead of paying guys like lindland,babalu,vitor,whitehead (fighters who are on the downside of their carers) so much money they should try and sign other hw free agents like mark hunt,alister overeem,segei.k, cro-cop and maybee randy if he ever gets free and add them to fedor,a.a.,barnett,sylvia, rothwell, buentello (and aleks if he gets well). the hws are what made the 1rst show good imo. they could have these guys take turns beating the crap out of one another and probably get out of the red w/ppv sales. their never gonna be able to compete w/the ufc from Lhw on down to lw. so why not stick with the heavies and leave the rest alone, they can throw in a lw fight or 2 just to keep it exciting, but they could make a name for themselves (and a buck or 2) by keeping it all HW.
i know, i know, whitehead never had an upside. lol!
I agree except I wanna see Vitor fight again, if he broke his hand rd 1 and still won that fight then I wanna see him at it again at %100! I’m still pulling for the Belfort of old to make a come back!
good idea, i would not mind that but also they may get more fighters down the road and grow in time right now they are not deep enough but remember alot of the top guys at ufc are still with affliction and might sign as soon as there contract is up ie gsp rampage and alot more.
Man it would surprise the hell out of me if they lost GSP. You never know, but GSP just doesn’t seem that money hungry, I would think he’s looking for the biggest audience and the best fights and right now UFC can deliver that to him. And I think Rampage will stick with the UFC if he ever does return to fight. I mean Dana flew out and bailed him 25k bail, Rampage is a good guy and I think his loyalty lies with the UFC, and being that they got his back like that it seems like the respect is going both ways. It would be crazy, if Affliction even bagged just those two they would dominate in that org for as long as their around.
i have heard that gsp was not happy with the ufc at times and felt under valued, i am sure when his contract is up the ufc will do everything to keep him and i don’t think he would leave either but you never never know
I hate watchging Tito fight, but I want him involved in Affliction fighting for the title, so all the stupid casual; fans that love watching him fight order the event thats why! I root for the organization and give them the benefit of the doubt, you on the other hand are Captain Sinicism or like we call on the ease Coast….hATER!
Why should I not love Fedor? He is only the bestr fighters on the world…. If u r going to have a favorite fighter, might as well be the best EVER!
YOu want to sit here and bash the financial side of Affliction when in reeality, you dont know S**t about them! No one, does, not me you or anyone else on this site for that matter. I dont pretend too, I just sit back enjoy what they have done for me so far,root for them to succeed and let the chips fall where they may.
U on the other hand, consume yourself with hating on Affliction. If I have to sit through one more of your “morning conversations” about how Affliction sucks and it will fail…I might Off myself! I dont get you, u r supposed to be a fan. please dont give me your trumped up financial prediction because anyone around here that claims to know about their books, is just fooling themselves, so what you say about the financial side of things, really holds NO WEIGHT in this discussion!
funny you should mention gsp. his contract is up in 2 fights and he is currently in negotiions with the ufc to renegotiate a new deal. the story i read didnt make it seem impossible that he would leave the ufc, just unlikely. i cant remember everything gsp said, but he did talk about how the money has tripled since his last contract and that he defenitley wants to get paid. i do remember reading somwhere that dana gave him a $500k bonus and a new hummer after he beat hughes for the 2nd time. that cant hurt.
sorry about yesterday maybe it was a bit much, but don’t act like you don’t do some trash talking.i agree you where right about the things you posted about buying there own tickects whitch most company’s do just not that many but for a first show maybe they had alot of people they wanted to hand them out to for more promotion.i thought they would do about 1million at the gate and that would have been pretty good for a first show so they did 1.5 and bought 500k themselves they still did better than i thought.i still diagree with you on them making it an on the show sucking it needs improvement but i liked most of the fights the last three where great imo.i will still disagree with you but no more persomal attacks as long as you don’t throw them my way.
lets all hold hands now and sing “coombaya”! lMAO!
coombaya
nice! Pellegrino by unanimous decision
I am not so sure about that! Even though tavares lost to Wiman, he is a bad dude! In my eyes, Batman will be the favorite but I am not ready to count Tavares out either!
Should be a great fight, but I doubt it will be televised!
john, i was waiting for, “have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moon light?” or at least, “i’m batman.” quote, lol!
LMAO! Have you ever danced with a devil in the pale moonlight is a classic quote! Jack Nicholson was 1 hell of a joker, I hear Heath Ledger is even better!
This is absolutely going to be a difficult fight for both fighters, and like Mania said, they were both in the title hunt (a win over Pellegrino granted Joe Daddy a title shot), but after recent losses, thier stock has dropped quite a bit. It even made me wonder if Thiago Tavarez’s UFC televised debut against Jason Black was more of a bad performance on Black’s part rather than a stellar performace by Thiago. I was really riding Thiago’s jock after seeing that fight. His stock didn’t drop much after losing a decision to Tyson Griffin. I mean, which LW hasn’t lost a decision to Griffin? However, a loss to Matt Wiman never looks good. Sure, Matt looked much improved, but talent wise, Thiago is worlds beyond Matt. That just shows me that Mr. Handsome has really been training his butt off. And Thiago may have thought it would have been an easy fight.
He won’t be taking Pellegrino lightly.
The standup between these two… I’d have to give the edge to Tavares because he is a more well rounded striker, but Kurt is the better boxer.
Kurt of course has the better wrestling, and Thiago of course has the better BJJ.
These are the types of stylistic matchups that lead to two fighters standing and banging it out!
Definitely a fight to look forward to.
I saw the Dark night on July 19th.. no one is fucking with JAck Nicholson..as the the joker.. no one.
jack is and always will be the best for that roll! phil: never got to that brazilian place, but i will soon and i didn’t forget; rodizio.
Not so sure if this fight will be televised. As of now it would be the 1st televised fight of the night. but so far, only 8 fights are on the card. I think another Big Fight will be added to this card, maybe Silva vs. Cote (althogh i think it will be on the uFC 89 card on Spike, because spike wants to air the spiders fights). If another quality fight gets added this will be the 1st one to get bumped off the televised portion and it will probably become the “Swing BOut”.
This will be a high paced match up. shold be really good. I am also looking forward to the beating Matt Brown is going to recieve from the japenese dude!
this should be a tough fight hard one to call
O another solid matchup. Tavares is a better athelete. He punished poor ol’ Jason Black, I kind of felt sorry for him. lol. I’m a little more impressed with Pellengrino’s jitz even though Nate tapped him. They both just ‘got caught’. They’re both super aggressive. Both got vicious ground & pound. Should be fireworks! I like Pellengrino. hope the winner gets Franky Edgar.
Fight of the night probably, but I’m leaning toward Tavares for that very reason. Jason Black was no chump and Thiago walked all over him. He’s just a good all around fighter. Pellegrino was looking great in that Nate Diaz fight until he got caught in that triangle though, but for sure both guys coming off a loss will be fighting like hell to keep from dropping 2 in a row.
could go either way. dropping 2 in a row looks really bad on their record. Pellengrino has some tricky moves. can’t picture him getting bullied. griffen aurellio was another good matchup but griffen looked way better that night. this might be one of those where whoever looks more desperate will win. its gonna be guud.
I think Kurt takes this. The guy is tough as nails. I don’t see Tavares winning this. I got Kurt by decision in an awesome tough fight.
good prelim fight to have should be on fight night though
good fight…I’m be at this one LIVE!
Great fight. Both of these fighters need a win, and the loser could possibly go to the WEC… going to be a great scrap.
Go Batman. Pelligrino is really starting to turn into one of my favorite mid level fighters.
kurt by knockout. he’s gonna catch with one straight down the pipe.
Am I the only person not interested in anderson silva fighting anyone at 185 except maybe a redemption fight against okami? Does cote (who i’ve always liked) really deserve a shot. I’m pushing for silva/forrest…not chuck/forrest!
wow we agree on something, the only fight in the ufc at mw is okami, i would also like to see a rematch with henderson but dan will have to earn it.there is some match ups outside of the ufc i wuold like to see not that nay of them would beat him but he has a chance to beat every great mw in the world right now and be the only person to truly beat everyfighter in his devision
f shamrock
lawler
lindland
le
paulo
and maybe trigg
i am not saying any of them are going to beat him but those are the people that are highly ranked at that weight
PLEASE remove Twinkle Toes, NOW!
LOL
i agree i put him on there just because for some reason he is ranked.
the reason gsp/fitch isn’t for the wamma ww belt is because the ufc/wec isn’t going to affiliate itself with wamma. most (if not all) of the other major mma organizations have joined wamma but the ufc/wec wants no part in it. so it really shouldn’t be called wamma because the ufc/wec has most championship worther fighters outside of heavyweight.
agreed, its like if I give you a trophy, you are playing in my league now. UFC is probably thinking F that! they built the industry ground up. these new orgs are leaching. they don’t need wamma! lol. UFC needs to be protecting their talant pool right about now.
lol, forrest would get killed, he is half the fighter silva is and stand up is his strenght..
agreed
Le is the only one worth mentioning. I posted a video (in vietnemese) where le is talking about that fight. he says UFC may “borrow” him for a night to make it happen. Roy, you agree with me more than you’ll admit, I’m pretty rational!
on anything but affliction and i don’t have a problem admitting when your right or if i am wrong and i don’t have a problem with diagreeing with you
i know people don’t like lindland and he did not look good his last fight but i think he would beat le.
I don’t think Le can hang with A. Silva. First rd TKO/sub, Silva’s the complete fighter and Cung doesn’t have a ground game (That I know of anyway). I don’t think Le could stand with Silva but assuming he actually managed to get the better of a couple exchanges Anderson is definatley a smart enough fighter to change level’s and pull out the jits.
Of course in Bonnar’s break down before the James Irvin fight he did bring up a point that A. Silva’s take downs are probably his weak spot, but I’ve never seen him in a position where he had to take a fight to the ground, so until I see him go for it I really don’t know.
I think if anything he’d clinch up and sweep to get it to the ground if he had to. IMO the only MW thats got a chance against Anderson is Dan, assuming he sticks to a gnp gameplan and stays away from the subs. He escaped so many big Nog subs in their first fight I know his sub defense is there, he just has to be dialed in that night and I think we’ll see a way different fight.
OMFG re watch the Silva Marquardt fight, that takedown he used right before he gave Nate the deathblow was top level stuff.
Yea good point, Cung has no chance then.
Cung Le would be no match for Silva. It would be entertaining for 1 minute if Cung could get a kick off. Anderson is simply too fast.
Look forward to submission of the night from Pellegrino.
I am hoping that T gets a tko over batman. Team Nog definitely needs a good lightweight in the division. I still can’t believe he lost to wiman. I remember feeling queezy when he went limp and flopped down.