UFC 113 Preview: The Main Card

Patrick Cote vs. Alan Belcher

The Breakdown: It’s a scientific fact that if you don’t put Canadians on a fight card being held in Canada, the locals will all simultaneously forget what MMA even is. With that knowledge in hand, pitting brick-fisted former title challenger and full-fledged Quebecois Cote against Mississippian kickboxer and terrible tattoo enthusiast Belcher makes an awful lot of sense.

Questions surround Cote’s achy breaky knee and the cage rust of a nearly two-year layoff. How those variables will play in this fight is unpredictable, but the word is that Cote’s rehab and training have been smooth sailing. Assuming full health and ability for Cote, he is exactly the kind of fighter Belcher is going to have trouble with.

An undeniably talented kickboxer, Belcher has also shown several times over a worrying lack of discipline that a fighter with minimal KO power and a middling chin can ill afford. Talent does not make you a superior kickboxer by default. Belcher tends to carry his hands low and drops them completely when throwing leg kicks, which wouldn’t be a problem if he measured them correctly. Throwing kicks while inside your opponent’s punching range is a move best left to the experts, and Belcher has been chin-checked a few times for his effort.

Those aren’t the major stylistic issues for Belcher, though. What really makes this fight difficult for him is that he likes having space and Cote is either going to give him too much or too little. Controlling distance and tempo are Cote’s specialties. He does it by either being outside his opponent’s effective range or two inches away from their grill. It may not make for the most visually pleasing style, but it keeps Cote from getting hit while affording him the chance to snap quick combos on the inside and grab the clinch before he takes any return fire.

That has been Cote’s game plan for some time now, and most are at a loss for how to stop it. Unless Belcher is willing to get on his horse and use his kicks in a more disciplined fashion, he’s going to get into the kind of ugly, plodding fight that his style simply isn’t built for.

The Bottom Line: If you like glacially paced clinch fights, then you’re in luck. But if you’re part of the 99.998 percent of fans who wouldn’t call that their cup of tea, well, there’s always the chance Cote lands one of his seismic overhand rights. Otherwise you’ll have to wait the full 15 to see the hometown boy get his hand raised.