UFC 117 Press Conference and Weigh-In Results

Here are the highlights from Thursday’s press conference. As usual, Chael Sonnen makes himself the star. If you watch the entire thing, you’ll learn just how infectious Thiago Alves’ laughter is. Alves and Dana White are on either side of Sonnen during the presser and both spend the majority of the time cracking up.

Yesterday, at the weigh-ins the fun continued. Chael announced he was hosting Anderson Silva’s retirement party and the stare-down was once again entertaining. (Watch the end of the press conference video for their first meeting.)

Everybody made weight except for the one person that everyone expected to miss weight. That’s right, days after missing the open workout because he was having trouble cutting weight, Thiago Alves missed weight by half a pound. It was the one thing that Jon Fitch asked him to do. (Besides getting injured, obviously.) Alves missed weight at UFC in 2008 when he came in at 174.

If you’re a casual fan or just someone killing time reading this post before the next one comes up, that probably doesn’t seem like a big deal. It is. Its Thiago Alves’ job to weigh 171-pounds or less at 7pm local time the day before he fights. By missing weight he forfeits 20-percent of his purse. Based on his last fight, that’s $12,000 he’s giving to Jon Fitch. Also, the winner of this fight is supposed to get a title shot. Should Alves escape with the victory, I bet he’s going to have to go through the winner of the Martin Kampmann – Jake Shields fight to earn that shot.

[Anderson and Chael via Fightlinker, Arianny via Getty]