(Sorry 'bout the formatting, not sure what happened)
Full disclosure:
1) I'm a fan of judokas -- which is Amilcar's base, supposedly
2) I'm a borderline Nova Uniao fanboy ;p Mainly due to Aldo and Sandro
So when news hit of Nova Uniao's latest sensation, Amilcar Alves, making his debut against Mike Pierce at 118, my interest perked.
And while a lot of my studies in prep for 118 have been focused on the Miranda vs Maia bout, I've recently taken the time to dedicate some studies to Alves matchup with Pierce...
Amilcar Alves
The available tape on Alves is not exactly plentiful and a good portion of the videos available are highlight tapes made to hype him, so getting an objective and thorough view of his skill set hasn't been the easiest task, but I've done as best as I can to obtain every piece of footage available.
One thing that surprised me is that I didn't see any demonstration of judo throws in Alves' footage.
Nonetheless, he is a very exciting fighter to watch -- very aggressive standup, and does demo submission skills from his back, albeit vs an inferior opponent (Tadeu) which I'll touch on shortly.
The best description of his striking is Aldo-esque (no big surprise being his Nova
teammate), but with one important caveat. It doesn't appear nearly as refined and polished as Aldo -- Alves gets a bit sloppy with his kicks and will throw loopy
punches at times. But like I said, it's fun to watch, but his overagression and may leave him vulnerable to takedowns. (warning flag #1 for this match)
Literature available suggests he is well versed on the ground, but the only footage I saw was a super quick sub of Andre Tadeu who has a very unimpressive resume.
And this leads me to my next warning flag regarding Alves -- His resume is essentially filled with, let's just say, guys who aren't worldbeaters save for a couple fights. It was a major red flag when I saw that at 9-1, Alves fought a guy who was 0-1... (Although to be fair, Jose Aldo's record of opposition wasn't the staunchest before he came stateside to dominate the WEC)
Some things that Amilcar may have going for him:
-Training with Aldo, he should have a decent gameplan if they follow the plan that
Aldo used against Mike Brown. Aldo has very solid TDD, and in his bout with Diego
Braga, Amilcar did demonstrate one instance of slick TDD (a Bj Penn like one leg hop) to deny a TD attempt from Braga. But don't over-buy into the whole training team theory; remember Ronys Torres, another touted Nova fighter came in and went 0-2 and was promptly released (even though I think he kinda got hosed by the judges).
-His bjj --> A sub on Andre Tadeu neither confirms or denies his bjj skills imho, so
it's more of an unknown asset.
Mike Pierce
Now a lot of the posts I've seen picking Pierce are along the lines of, "He hung with Fitch, so he'll take this fight." But I wanted to dig a little deeper than that.
And at this point, I still need to review the Pierce vs Paulino bout later, but am
confident enough at this point after watching his bouts with Fitch and Brock Larson to present some findings, and will add an update should the Paulino footage change my views any...
As most took away from the Fitch fight, we know Pierce is a gamer. Simply put, he's solid. He keeps his hands up, will work for takedowns, use knees in the clinch, showed a decent gas tank, and packs some pop in his 4 oz gloves when he connects, as he nearly finished off Fitch in the 3rd round. An impressive showing, even in a loss.
It's Pierce's fight with Brock Larson that is the most telling of the footage I've
seen thus far. In that bout, Pierce is RELENTLESS. Mercilessly working takedowns on Larson. In both round 1 and round 2, Larson attempts a kimura, but Pierce demonstrates the awareness to escape -- and Brock Larson is no joke on the mat as he does have 20 sub wins to his credit. Near the end of round 1 Pierce did let his hands drop and got caught with a punch, but absorbed the damage... Down 0-2, Larson opened up the third round with a flurry that landed a knee to Pierce's cranium and some follow up strikes. Pierce kept his wits and powered through this to get another takedown, where he regained his composure to go onto the 30-27 win. So what this fight illustrated is that Pierce has decent sub defense and a reasonable chin to boot (no KO/TKO defeats on his sheet as well).
118 Matchup
So how does this clash of styles play out???
Alves has stated that he wants to make an impression, and with his dynamic striking style, I fully expect him to come out guns-a-blazing. In that case, if Pierce can catch an overcommitment, a takedown is imminent.
If Alves plays it safe and waits for a Pierce TD attempt, he'll likely counter with
a knee, but I think Pierce's hands are solid enough for him to use punches to set up his TDs. I doubt he'll just King Mo it and shoot, shoot, shoot with no set up.
So unless Alves demonstrates Aldo-like TDD (which is a marginal possibility), we're
likely looking at a match with Pierce controlling using his wrestling, and Alves
working to get it standing again or working subs from his back. Now this is where the upredictability of Alves bjj is a bit of an x-factor. If it's amazing, he could work a sub, but I liked the awareness Pierce demo'd in his Larson fight to avoid
compromising situations while working his ground attack. Though, Alves' bjj should be enough to avoid getting gnp tko'd. Yes, I'm basing this off of conjecture, I know.
The current odds suggest Pierce takes this match 75% of the time. The only thing that would keep me from making this play is the limited footage on Alves, so it's a bit risky at that juice -- Potential parlay material perhaps.
If I could get Pierce by decision, I'd be all over that play though.
If Pierce lets his guard down, a flash KO may be possible, but he's shown pretty
decent discipline in keeping his hands up; and again, maybe Amilcar has crazy bjj, but it's impossible to verify at this point.
So my recommendation here is Pierce by decision, if you have a book offering it.
Or consider adding Pierce to a parlay. But don't bet the bankroll
I advise some level of caution on this play due to the limited amount of
footage available on Alves. His competition thus far hasn't been impressive but maybe this will be his coming out party as I'm sure Joe Silva and Dana are hoping for a highlight reel KO or sub by Amilcar to start a new hype train, but I just don't think he'll get it on Pierce as Pierce is by far, the toughest test of Alves' young career.
Good luck fellas.
ED
Full disclosure:
1) I'm a fan of judokas -- which is Amilcar's base, supposedly
2) I'm a borderline Nova Uniao fanboy ;p Mainly due to Aldo and Sandro
So when news hit of Nova Uniao's latest sensation, Amilcar Alves, making his debut against Mike Pierce at 118, my interest perked.
And while a lot of my studies in prep for 118 have been focused on the Miranda vs Maia bout, I've recently taken the time to dedicate some studies to Alves matchup with Pierce...
Amilcar Alves
The available tape on Alves is not exactly plentiful and a good portion of the videos available are highlight tapes made to hype him, so getting an objective and thorough view of his skill set hasn't been the easiest task, but I've done as best as I can to obtain every piece of footage available.
One thing that surprised me is that I didn't see any demonstration of judo throws in Alves' footage.
Nonetheless, he is a very exciting fighter to watch -- very aggressive standup, and does demo submission skills from his back, albeit vs an inferior opponent (Tadeu) which I'll touch on shortly.The best description of his striking is Aldo-esque (no big surprise being his Nova
teammate), but with one important caveat. It doesn't appear nearly as refined and polished as Aldo -- Alves gets a bit sloppy with his kicks and will throw loopy
punches at times. But like I said, it's fun to watch, but his overagression and may leave him vulnerable to takedowns. (warning flag #1 for this match)
Literature available suggests he is well versed on the ground, but the only footage I saw was a super quick sub of Andre Tadeu who has a very unimpressive resume.
And this leads me to my next warning flag regarding Alves -- His resume is essentially filled with, let's just say, guys who aren't worldbeaters save for a couple fights. It was a major red flag when I saw that at 9-1, Alves fought a guy who was 0-1... (Although to be fair, Jose Aldo's record of opposition wasn't the staunchest before he came stateside to dominate the WEC)
Some things that Amilcar may have going for him:
-Training with Aldo, he should have a decent gameplan if they follow the plan that
Aldo used against Mike Brown. Aldo has very solid TDD, and in his bout with Diego
Braga, Amilcar did demonstrate one instance of slick TDD (a Bj Penn like one leg hop) to deny a TD attempt from Braga. But don't over-buy into the whole training team theory; remember Ronys Torres, another touted Nova fighter came in and went 0-2 and was promptly released (even though I think he kinda got hosed by the judges).
-His bjj --> A sub on Andre Tadeu neither confirms or denies his bjj skills imho, so
it's more of an unknown asset.
Mike Pierce
Now a lot of the posts I've seen picking Pierce are along the lines of, "He hung with Fitch, so he'll take this fight." But I wanted to dig a little deeper than that.
And at this point, I still need to review the Pierce vs Paulino bout later, but am
confident enough at this point after watching his bouts with Fitch and Brock Larson to present some findings, and will add an update should the Paulino footage change my views any...
As most took away from the Fitch fight, we know Pierce is a gamer. Simply put, he's solid. He keeps his hands up, will work for takedowns, use knees in the clinch, showed a decent gas tank, and packs some pop in his 4 oz gloves when he connects, as he nearly finished off Fitch in the 3rd round. An impressive showing, even in a loss.
It's Pierce's fight with Brock Larson that is the most telling of the footage I've
seen thus far. In that bout, Pierce is RELENTLESS. Mercilessly working takedowns on Larson. In both round 1 and round 2, Larson attempts a kimura, but Pierce demonstrates the awareness to escape -- and Brock Larson is no joke on the mat as he does have 20 sub wins to his credit. Near the end of round 1 Pierce did let his hands drop and got caught with a punch, but absorbed the damage... Down 0-2, Larson opened up the third round with a flurry that landed a knee to Pierce's cranium and some follow up strikes. Pierce kept his wits and powered through this to get another takedown, where he regained his composure to go onto the 30-27 win. So what this fight illustrated is that Pierce has decent sub defense and a reasonable chin to boot (no KO/TKO defeats on his sheet as well).
118 Matchup
So how does this clash of styles play out???
Alves has stated that he wants to make an impression, and with his dynamic striking style, I fully expect him to come out guns-a-blazing. In that case, if Pierce can catch an overcommitment, a takedown is imminent.
If Alves plays it safe and waits for a Pierce TD attempt, he'll likely counter with
a knee, but I think Pierce's hands are solid enough for him to use punches to set up his TDs. I doubt he'll just King Mo it and shoot, shoot, shoot with no set up.
So unless Alves demonstrates Aldo-like TDD (which is a marginal possibility), we're
likely looking at a match with Pierce controlling using his wrestling, and Alves
working to get it standing again or working subs from his back. Now this is where the upredictability of Alves bjj is a bit of an x-factor. If it's amazing, he could work a sub, but I liked the awareness Pierce demo'd in his Larson fight to avoid
compromising situations while working his ground attack. Though, Alves' bjj should be enough to avoid getting gnp tko'd. Yes, I'm basing this off of conjecture, I know.
The current odds suggest Pierce takes this match 75% of the time. The only thing that would keep me from making this play is the limited footage on Alves, so it's a bit risky at that juice -- Potential parlay material perhaps.
If I could get Pierce by decision, I'd be all over that play though.
If Pierce lets his guard down, a flash KO may be possible, but he's shown pretty
decent discipline in keeping his hands up; and again, maybe Amilcar has crazy bjj, but it's impossible to verify at this point.
So my recommendation here is Pierce by decision, if you have a book offering it.
Or consider adding Pierce to a parlay. But don't bet the bankroll
I advise some level of caution on this play due to the limited amount of
footage available on Alves. His competition thus far hasn't been impressive but maybe this will be his coming out party as I'm sure Joe Silva and Dana are hoping for a highlight reel KO or sub by Amilcar to start a new hype train, but I just don't think he'll get it on Pierce as Pierce is by far, the toughest test of Alves' young career.
Good luck fellas.
ED
Agree about the Alves footage. That's what I'm saying... unless there's some hidden footage they've buried that is unavailable to us, he just looks "exciting".
