Will Koscheck and Alves be the fight of the month or did Chris Lytle and Paul Taylor steal their thunder?

Kelly - I can’t see the late replacement of Koscheck being more exciting than Sanchez would have been and in fact, I daresay this might turn into a frustrating thing to watch. I’m actually dreading this fight for two reasons-Alves’ ground skills are not on Kos’ level and Kos needs to win this in order to stay in the title hunt. That spells takedown and caution on his part just like his training partner, Jon Fitch, who wouldn’t take any chances against Chris Wilson just before his title shot with GSP. Koscheck has a lot to lose and won’t be too hip on coming out aggressive against Alves and getting caught like Matt Hughes did. He’ll take this fight to the ground and keep it there. What’s that you say? He’ll show some great ground and pound? I protest. Alves is much stronger and bigger than anyone Kos has tried to hold down before, so he won’t be able to get off big shots like he did against Chris Lytle and Diego Sanchez. So in the end it will be repeated takedowns with no finish. Lytle and Taylor’s donnybrook last weekend is a likely candidate for fight of the year along with Joachim Hansen and Eddie Alvarez’s brawl in Dream. Call me a skeptic, but I don’t envision Kos and The Pitbull matching the intensity of those fights.

Mike - The idea of Koscheck being awarded any “Fight of the …” category seems improbable to me. I think Alves-Sanchez is definitely a more exciting fight, but I am very curious about the current match-up. And I am not quite ready to point the finger and scream “Blanket!” at Koscheck just yet. The former NCAA champ is really rounding out his game with the American Kickboxing Academy. His striking now looks powerful and crisp. Two fights ago he dropped Dustin Hazelett with a high kick. And Koscheck is big for a welterweight, and knows how to cut weight (knows more than Alves, at least.) I don’t see this fight going well for Alves, not only from a stylistic point of view, but for the fact that I feel Alves is a fair-weather fighter. When he is winning he is a house on fire, but let’s see if Alves has what it takes to throw that flying knee at Koscheck after he has been on his back for 12 minutes eating elbows. Randall “Tex” Cobb, who once lost all 15 rounds against Larry Holmes while never backing up one time, said, “Anyone can run fast going downhill.” If Alves thinks he is fighting another Matt Hughes, he is in for surprise.