Preview: UFC 254 Prelims

Light Heavyweights

Da Un Jung (13-2) vs. Sam Alvey (33-14)

ODDS: Jung (-345), Alvey (+285)

Is this the last stand for Alvey? For a few years, Alvey brought a strangely entertaining change of pace to the UFC’s events when he appeared. He would walk out to the dulcet tones of Train while grinning all the way, knock out some defensive flawed middleweight and then use his post-fight interview to stump for his next bout to be in whatever far-flung area the promotion was heading to next. It was mostly used as an excuse to bring the wife and kids on a paid vacation. At this point, the good times seem to firmly be over for Alvey. His approach was always walking a razor’s edge. Alvey was often impressively committed to inactivity before he would suddenly find his opening to score a huge knockout punch. Weight-cutting issues at middleweight forced Alvey to move to 205 pounds, which seems to have been Step 1 in his decline. Against larger opponents, Alvey is not hitting quite as hard and is getting hit harder in return, to the point that he is consistently at risk of getting knocked out. During in his recent four-fight skid, Alvey has looked even less willing to pull the trigger than he was at his peak, taking away the moments of surprising offense that were the entire basis for his success. Nothing is working for Alvey at the moment, and rather than give him an obvious rebound fight, the UFC has decided to match him against Jung. The surging Korean prospect has also been a counterstriker for most of his career, which led him to outlast Khadis Ibragimov in his UFC debut in 2019. However, he looked more comfortable throwing against Mike Rodriguez in December and scored a first-round knockout as a result. Jung’s defense is no great shakes, so it is entirely possible that Alvey could crack him. While the 2017 or 2018 version of “Smilin’ Sam” would have a solid chance of winning this fight, the 2020 iteration will likely literally be beaten to the punch. The pick is Jung via first-round knockout.

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