By Adam Martin
I don’t know what happened to Alan Belcher the other night in New Jersey, but I do know one thing: he offered up by far the most disappointing performance of any fighter on the UFC 159 card.
The UFC gave Belcher the opportunity of a lifetime, the chance to take on veteran Michael Bisping in the co-main event of one of the biggest pay-per-views of the year. Even though Belcher had lost by unanimous decision to Yushin Okami in his last outing at UFC 155, the organization for some reason forgave him for that performance and decided to give him an even higher-ranked opponent in the form of Bisping.
A win over Bisping would have gotten Belcher back in the title hunt, as it would have been by far the biggest victory of his career. Instead, Belcher did absolutely nothing to try to win the fight. For nearly 15 minutes Belcher just kind of stood there in front of Bisping with his hands down while the Brit outboxed him, until Belcher took an unfortunate eyepoke in the third round that led to the stopping of the fight, which Bisping won by unanimous technical decision.
Prior to his last two losses, Belcher had been on a roll as he had won six of seven fights (six by TKO/KO or submission) with the lone loss coming by split decision to Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 100 in a fight that was universally panned as a robbery. The best win of the bunch was when he defeated Rousimar Palhares by TKO at UFC on FOX 3, as that’s the victory that really shot Belcher up the ranks and into the top 10 of the division.
But he’s proven in his last two fights that he’s not an elite middleweight. Sure, on paper Belcher has all the tools to be one of the best in the world at 185 pounds. After all, he’s a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, a black belt in judo, a black belt in taekwondo and an excellent Muay Thai striker (all making him worthy of his nickname “The Talent.”) He also has tremendous submission ability, and he’s one of the bigger 185 pounders out there. Plus, he seems like a really cool guy who loves to interact with the fans, and that’s always a bonus.
But for whatever reason his resume on paper just hasn’t translated to his performance in the cage as Belcher’s last two fights have left a lot to be desired. His performance against Bisping was so disappointing, in fact, that I don’t think Belcher is ever going to sniff the top 10 again.
Belcher’s 9-6 record in the UFC is impressive when you consider his opponents and how long he’s been fighting in the organization for, but in the fight game you’re often only as good as your last fight and Belcher’s last fight — actually, his last two fights — have been dreadful.
I can’t imagine how disappointed the UFC must be. Before the fight with Bisping, UFC president Dana White was really trying to sell Belcher as a contender in the middleweight division and, like I’ve mentioned, it seemed like the UFC went out of its way never to mention the fact he lost in his last fight.
But Belcher couldn’t live up to the hype, and now he’s really left to reevaluate his career. Sure, he’s only 29, but he’s been in a lot of fights in his career so far and if the fights with Bisping and Okami showed anything, it’s that he’s likely already hit his peak and isn’t going to improve anymore.
There’s always the chance I could be totally off base with that last comment. After all, welterweight Matt Brown at one point lost three straight fights and four of five overall and I thought he was done but he’s since reeled off five straight wins in one of the UFC’s deepest divisions. So it’s possible Belcher could be a late bloomer and just needs a little bit more time to work on his game.
However, it’s much more likely that he’s just not a true contender for the middleweight title but rather just a high-level gatekeeper because after that miserable performance against Bisping, I don’t see how you could consider him anything more than that at this point.
