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A trailer for the upcoming release, “Such Great Heights,” an intimate look inside the world of mixed martial arts fighting. The film follows top UFC Welterweight Contender Jon Fitch, both inside and outside of the cage, as he prepares to do battle with Champion Georges St. Pierre. Intensity and emotion move toward critical mass as fight night approaches and a tight knit team rallies around Jon.

While Fitch prepares for this climactic moment in his life, the story weaves through the daily triumphs and challenges of the other fighters at the American Kickboxing Academy (AKA). The film explores the grueling lifestyles of these fighters as they deal with everything from their personal demons to finding a place to sleep at night.

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This looks like an interesting documentary. American Kickboxing Academy has generated some fantastic fighters including Jon Fitch, Josh Thomson, Josh Kosheck, Mike Swick, Cain Velasquez to name a few. The gym has become a staple in the MMA world and is one of the best in the business. Bob Cook and Javier Mendez have helped turn the gym into on the the best in the nation and help put San Jose as a stronger face on the MMA map.

Jon Fitch is a very durable and talented fighter. His wrestling ability is tremendous and he has a very intense work ethic. No matter who he’s fighting he’s really tough, and the only fighter where he really had a whole bunch of trouble was against GSP. A common syndrome at 170.
No shame in that.

But Fitch against Alves is going to be a great rematch. Thiago Alves is dying for a chance to get back that loss to Fitch, and Fitch wants another crack at the belt and to avenge his defeat versus Georges St. Pierre. Revenge is a common theme in this intriguing matchup. It’s going to be tough to pick and the oddsmakers have it pretty close. Alves is the slight favorite and I agree with that. He has very good striking, a lot of power, can suck out your energy pretty well with his leg kicks. Those kicks are very powerful and if he can land several of them in round one, they can pay off dividends in the final 10 minutes of action. Fitch won’t have as much bounce in his legs and that lack of pep in his step will curtail his takedown ability. These are two very good MMA fighters, have well rounded skills, but to simplify things it’s going to come to ground and pound versus striking. If Fitch gets it to the ground for most of the fight he wins. If Alves keeps it on the feet for most of the fight, he wins.

As far as what happens if Fitch wins, he’s made it clear he won’t fight Josh Koscheck if he is holding the belt. If Kos and Fitch do win their respective bouts versus GSP and Alves, then there will be no showdowns between the two American Kickboxing Academy teammates in Fitch and Koscheck. Those two don’t think it’s worthwhile to fight against one another. This is a sticking point with UFC president Dana White who is not a fan of this sort of behaviour. There’s money to be made in seeing a fight like Fitch and Koscheck, and White isn’t a fan of it being stopped do to a teammate friendship. You’ve got to respect the fact that Fitch would actually move to 185 and leave his number one contender status should he beat Alves and Kos beat GSP. He’ll jump up to middleweight if Koscheck does win the belt and successfully defend it. But first things first, he has to get past Thiago Alves, and that’s a monster of a fighter at 170 to deal with. Looking forward to this welterweight rematch at UFC 117.

The card in Oakland has some good fights on it for sure. The California crowd will enjoy the Chael Sonnen/Anderson Silva title bout at middleweight. On top of that we have this fight with Fitch and Alves, then there’s a heavyweight tilt between Roy Nelson and Junior Dos Santos, which has heavyweight title implications. The winner is expected to take on the winner of the title fight in October between Cain Velasquez and Brock Lesnar. And finally, another solid duel on the card at UFC 117 is Ricardo “Big Dog” Almeida going up against Matt Hughes. Almeida will look to defend the honor of his trainer Renzo Gracie, who was battered in the final two rounds in his fight in Abu Dhabi at UFC 112.

Thiago Alves is hungrier than ever and is thirsting at an opportunity for revenge. I think he’s going to get it against Jon Fitch in this rematch between top welterweight contenders.

It’s going to be real hard to stop Fitch, the guy can take a beating like few can in that division. He suffered a fantastic pounding at the hands of Georges St. Pierre for the majority of the 25 minutes they fought in a title bout. But the American welterweight has an incredible heart, and is bolstered from a unrelenting work ethic and hours of solid training at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose. Fitch is the kind of guy that sort of flies under the radar, he doesn’t talk too much and doesn’t have a super-dynamic style of fighting where he’s KOing people in never seen before fashion, or pulling off BJJ moves that are causing fans to leap out of their seats. He is just a grinder and uses a lot of skill, experience, talent and sheer grit to grind out victories by taking down opponents and using ground and pound.

I think Alves will keep this fight standing by stuffing some takedowns, but the takedowns that Fitch gets will not be followed by long lasting ground time. I think Alves will use his scrambling skills to get back up to his feet and from there use his power, excellent leg kicks and overall Muay Thai edge to beat Jon Fitch. The Californian is tough as nails, so I think he’ll last the 3 rounds, but Alves will pick up the W and avenge his loss to Fitch.

SILVA WILL REIGN SUPRMEME
Chael Sonnen will make this fight very interesting with his takedown skill and hard-nosed style of fighting. But Anderson Silva is still Anderson Silva. Whether he comes into a fighting like a killer, or more passive, he still has never walked out of the UFC Octagon without having his hand raised.

The last time Silva got a tongue-lashing from his boss for not coming to fight and being passive, the Brazilian came out firing against Forrest Griffin and put on perhaps his greatest performance to date. Sonnen will do better than a lot of people might think, but so will Silva compared to his last bout with Maia. Silva via KO some time late in the first round or early in the second.

Both of these welterweights met in June 2006 and Jon Fitch scored the TKO win over Thiago Alves after he landed some strikes following some upkicks to take out the Brazilian 170 pounder. Fastforward 4 years and both competitors are a lot different and have grown since that fight. I’d say that Alves has evolved more, but both of them had title shots went went the full 5 rounds with Georges St. Pierre, and lost decisions to the Canadian superstar. Now they take on each other on route to another shot at Pierre and the welterweight title. Here are some things to take into consideration in this pivotal 170 pound battle.

STRIKING

Thiago has an apt nickname in “Pitbull” in terms of the way he fights on the feet. GSP shut his striking down, but the Brazilian’s Muay Thai is very good, and more importantly his power is exceptional. Whether it’s with his fists, or devastating leg kicks, Alves hits hard and goes for the finish. He will have the stand up edge in this fight. Although Fitch is a seasoned vet, has plenty of good standup fighters to train with at American Kickboxing Academy, he’s still best at taking fighters to the mat and working ground and pound from there to score a win. His stand up is not going to be at the level of Alves both on a technical and power level.

WRESTLING

This is Fitch’s bread and butter. He is crafty and quick with takedowns, times them well and is able to put almost all fighters on their back at 170. The only fighter he had a very difficult time in wrestling against was GSP, which is a probably for every single fighter the Canadian faces in the cage. Nonetheless, Fitch has the tools to take Alves to the mat…but it won’t be easy. Alves has solid takedown defense, and although we did see him spend an immense amount of time on his back against Pierre, he did defend some takedowns well, which is a pretty remarkable feat against GSP, who has become the premiere takedown technican in the sport. More importantly than the takedown defense is Alves’ scrambling ability. If there is anything positive that Alves took away from his fight with GSP was the amount of times he got back up after being planted on his back against the Canadian juggernaut. Pierre is relentless and great with taking guys down, but much credit has to be given to Thiago Alves for showing great technique and determination in willing himself back to his feet in that 5 round title fight. We’re talking about GSP, who showed an amazing ability to floor the great BJ Penn and working side control and immobilizing the great Hawaiin champ when the two competed in their second bout. The point is Pierre has some excellent ground control but Alves intelligently used his scrambling skills to rise up again to the standup realm. Against Fitch it won’t be a shocker if Alves gets taken down, but the way the Brazilian moves off his back, it won’t be a surprised to only see him on the canvas for a short period of time. The rest of the time will be spent by Alves utilizing leg kicks and headhunting Fitch with fists.

JIU JITSU

Neither is really a submission specialist so I don’t really anticipate a tapout victory in this bout. Don’t count on a “Submission of the Night” bonus being dealt out to either of these fighters. If Fitch wins, it’s probably via decision.

SIZE

The size of Alves gives him an edge in this bout. By fight time he might hovering around 200 pounds and is an extremely large welterweight that packs a wallop in his punches. Jon Fitch is an animal that is very difficult to stop, as evidenced by his fight with Georges St. Pierre. I’ve never seen a more intense GSP beatdown that didn’t end with his opponent finished. Fitch several times was beat on severely but kept fighting on and imrpessed the hell out of me in that fight. I’ve never been more impressed with a fighter after so severely being dominated in a fight. That being said, GSP doesn’t have the same power in his punches as Alves and the Brazilian has a better chance of using his massive power he generates from his gigantic welterweight frame to score a KO.

THE OUTCOME

If Jon Fitch wins it’s probably going to be via decision. Fitch has been talking in pre-fight hype videos for the event that if he finishes Alves he’ll be able to do twice what GSP wasn’t able to do in 5 rounds. That’s true but it’s going to be a tough task to stop Alves, who is a very durable fighter and fought hard for the 25 minutes allotted against GSP. Jon Fitch as well has not proven in his last few fights that he has an intense killer instinct in terms of pounding out opponents on the ground. He’s had some good wins but has utilizing a style of outpointing opponents for the win moreso than passing guard, scoring the mount and pounding his opponents into a KO or TKO win. So Alves will be hard to finish on the ground and feet, where of course Alves as the edge. And that is the best chance Alves has to win this fight–in the standup. Once again, Fitch is a very tough customer and will be difficult to stop. That being said, Alves is a very nasty striker, has big power, and has revenge on his mind. He wants to pay back the favor Fitch gave him in 2006, and is very focussed on returning it squarely on the jaw of Mr. Fitch. I think Fitch can score some takedowns in this bout but won’t get much accomplished in that domain because Alves is too swift in getting back to the feet. And on the feet Alves will be either able to knock out to outpoint his American counterpart. I think Alves is either going to get that KO win or win 2 rounds to 1 in a close decision on the judges scorecards.

“To me there’s no reason to fight a teammate. It’s just not a fight we’re interested in at all. It’s a situation where, if Koscheck is able to win the belt and defend the belt, I will move up to 185. I think I have a good size frame. I can put on 15 pounds. I may have to take a month off or so to put on some weight, but that process may take over a year from now. I’ll have fought every welterweight worth fighting by then.”

Aug-9-2008 6pm ET/PT  

See Georges ‘Rush’ St-Pierre  as ghe trains in his hometown to defend his UFC Welterweight Championship at UFC 87: SEEK AND DESTROY against Jon Fitch. First time Welterweight title challenger Jon Fitch prepares to take on the challenge of his fighting career. Also see Heath Herring and Brock Lesnar as they get ready for a Heavyweight battle.
 
 

4 Hours to work, 36 to train

If you had only had 4 hours to work a week you’d probably train a lot more. Best selling author Timothy Ferriss has done just that. The Californiam author of “The 4-Hour Work Week” regularly trains at the American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) in San Jose, and has had the luxury of rolling with some of the gym’s UFC veterans such as Josh Koscheck, Mike Swick, Jone Fitch and Phil Baroni.

An All-American collegiate wrestler in the mid 90s, Ferriss transferred his combat sports experience into studying Judo and mixed martial arts in Japan. He earned a blackbelt in Judo from the Kodokan in Tokyo. From there he began training at Kiguchi Dojo where he fought in amateur MMA battles against some top flight competitors such as Rumina Sato. His extensive traveling has supplemented his interest in MMA—Ferriss has trained at the Brazilian Top Team, Norwegian Top Team, and Fairtex Muay Thai in
Bangplee, Thailand. Within Japan he’s also trained at Takada Dojo, Enson Inoue’s Purebred, Yuki Nakai’s Paraestra among others. But he’s more than happy where he’s at these days at AKA, training with all the talent the gym holds as well as highly regarded BJJ coach Dave Camarillo. The head BJJ instructor at AKA,

Camarillo, is the best BJJ teacher Ferriss has ever seen from the plethora of instructors he’s encountered.

Camarillo has been has been instrumental in his progress over the past couple years. “He’s exceptionally good at teaching fundamentals, fundamental principles that apply in any technique”, lauds Ferriss. “He has a very standardized process of teaching and s a result, all of his guys are pretty difficult to deal with, because they have very good posture and extremely good hip control, their fundamental characteristics.” The training and drilling of those fundamentals has vastly improved Ferriss’ ground game. Along the way ability to combine his Judo and Jiu-Jitsu skills has flourished wonderfully under the guidance of

Camarillo. “He’s exceptionally good at standup grappling”, comments Ferriss on his teacher. “He’s essentially Olympic level Judo caliber, so he’s the best I’ve seen at combining Judo and Jiu-Jitsu.”

Ferriss combined those elements in a BJJ tourney in 2006 in

Santa Cruz, California. At the time he training with Cameron Earle, a blackbelt under Ralph Gracie. Ferriss won his division in the competition and hopes to accomplish similar feats in 2008 under the tutelage of

Camarillo. But he’s going to have to be careful of watching his bumps and bruises. “Right not I have a torn Achilles tendon from grappling”, explains Ferriss before laughing. “So I’ve been out for about a month and a half.” But when not injured, he will usually hit the AKA gym to train 3 to 5 times a week.

Ferriss hasn’t always had the luxury of freeing up time to pursue extra hours training. From 2002 to 2204, he was putting in 80-90 hour work weeks in

Silicon Valley working for internet startups, and then with his own nutritional supplements company. In June 2004, Ferriss was on the verge of burning out and decided to either redesign or shutdown his business, as it was incompatible with his life. He took a trip to London for a month to step outside of his work and decided to check email once per week as opposed to the one to two hundred times he had been previously. After he noticed a 30% increase in his profitability, he begin realizing the potential for productivity with less work. He also realized his previous working style had to be halted. “The results by volume approach–putting in more hours was completely unsustainable”, notes Ferriss. It dawned on him that there was much leverage in using other avenues besides excessively working. “The value of your income is really dependent on how much you control time and mobility.” Ferriss eliminated all the factors that wasted his time, tossed his Blackberry in the trash, doesn’t check email even on a daily basis, and uses a team of MBAs in

India are working for him for about $4/hour.

Good thing those MBAs aren’t working 4 hours a week. But Ferriss is an enjoying the good life—one that includes little work clocked in an office, but a lot of fun hard work in the gym.