An injury has forced Thiago Alves (19-9, 11-6 UFC) to postpone his long-awaited August return to the Octagon. Alves was slated to take on Matt Brown (17-11, 10-5 UFC) at the inaugural UFC On FOX Sports 1 event from Boston. Brown will now take on replacement Mike Pyle (25-8-1, 8-3) in a main card bout at the event.
UFC officials announced the switch on Wednesday.
Alves has not been seen in action since a March 2012 submission loss to Martin Kampmann at UFC On FX 2. Alves was ahead in that fight until Kampmann secured a fight-ending guillotine choke with less than a minute to go. Alves was scheduled to fight Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 149 last July, but an injury forced him out of that bout, and he has been healing nagging injuries over the past year, and his return is now on hold yet again.
Pyle takes the fight on a little more than six weeks’ notice while putting a four-fight win streak on the line. Pyle was last in action at UFC 160 in May where he scored a split decision over Rick Story. That decision followed three-straight knockout wins over Ricardo Funch, Josh Neer and James Head. After starting his UFC career with a 1-2 mark, Pyle is 7-1 over his last eight fights with the lone loss coming to highly-ranked welterweight Rory MacDonald.
Brown is riding the biggest wave of success in his UFC career coming into this fight. Brown competed on season seven of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and started his UFC career with wins in four of his first five fights. However, he hit a huge roadblock in his career with four submission losses in the span of five fights. He has since bounced back with five straight wins over Chris Cope, Stephen Thompson, Luis Ramos, Mike Swick, and most recently at UFC On FOX 7 in April, Jordan Mein. Four of those five wins have come by knockout.
UFC On FOX Sports 1 #1 takes place on Aug. 17 from the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. Ten of the thirteen fights on the card will air on FOX Sports 1 while the other three will air on Facebook. Mauricio Rua meets Chael Sonnen in the night’s main event.
