Fighters Only

Issue 065

August 2010

There’s a lot you can say about UFC middleweight Alan Belcher: He’s talented, dedicated, versatile, a hard worker and a game fighter who puts on an entertaining performance in the cage. But until recently the biggest problem has been the lack of people talking about the American 185lb’er.

Alan Belcher has kind of slipped under the radar, yet has slowly but surely climbed his way up the UFC 185lb ladder. He’s been in the organization for four years, fought for them 11 times and defeated names such as Ed Herman, Denis Kang, Wilson Gouveia and, most recently, Patrick Cote.

Despite the success, Belcher – a mild-mannered and soft-spoken fighter – has gone somewhat unnoticed in a weight class that is in need of a fresh crop of contenders. Part of Belcher’s lack of recognition is due to a few key losses, which have prevented him from stringing together a meaningful win streak. Since 2007 his time in the UFC has seen him rack up seven wins, but he’s not managed to go longer than two fights without being handed a loss.

The last loss was the toughest because, had Belcher picked up a win against Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 100, he could have been a few steps closer to the title. The close split decision went the way of Akiyama, though many felt the result belonged to Belcher. With his recent win over former title challenger Patrick Cote, Belcher’s proved he’s got the goods to hang with the top five in the middleweight division.

Not everyone jumped on the Belcher bandwagon right off the bat, but his coaches have always sensed his potential. “To me, Alan Belcher is the most underrated guy in the mixed martial arts industry,” comments Duke Roufus, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin kickboxer who hones Belcher’s striking. “A lot of guys sleep on Alan because he’s just a nice, calm kid outside the cage; but in the Octagon he’s a beast.”

That beast was unleashed on Patrick Cote at UFC 113 in May, where Belcher scored a rear naked choke win over the Canadian in Cote’s hometown of Montreal. “It felt like it was a great achievement, a step up in competition and my career,” he recalls. “It meant a lot to fight someone who has been in there and fought the champ.” The win in Montreal also signified a growth in Belcher’s confidence – two years earlier the rabid Bell Centre crowd in Montreal had really got to Belcher as he went out to take on the Canadian fighter Jason Day. The moment proved to be too much for him: “It was really scary and intimidating the first time I went there and lost to Jason Day – we didn’t really have a good fight,” explains Belcher. “The crowd kind of blew me away, so I just wanted to overcome that and it was a challenge – I feel really proud doing that.”

It’s been a really long climb up the UFC ladder for Belcher. He’s been in the UFC for four years, but the 26-year-old native of Biloxi, Mississippi, has been doing martial arts since the tender age of eight. “I can’t really remember not doing martial arts,” Belcher says. His life has been heavily dedicated to competitive combative arts – at 14, he started jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai. “I started fighting around 14, 15 years old in MMA, and kickboxing and boxing actually after that,” he recalls, but it wasn’t until 2003 that Belcher began taking it seriously as a legitimate profession.

He was in junior college on a baseball scholarship, but his desire wasn’t to swing a bat at a ball. Instead, it was to strike with his hands, knees, elbows and shins en route to the top of the MMA world. “I quit school to pursue fighting full-time, and at that time I was going to give it my all,” he says. “That was about seven years ago, and I’ve gone full speed ever since.” At 16-6-0 and considered one of the front-runners in the division, it appears Belcher made a wise choice.

A lot of his success comes down to his choice of training partners. He can draw upon the strong striking knowledge of Duke Roufus, a multiple-time kickboxing champ, with who Alan spends the last four weeks of every fight camp. Belcher’s last month of training is a real asset to his game, and he’s shown this with TKO wins over the likes of Jorge Santiago, Kalib Starnes and Wilson Gouveia. “I go down to Duke’s four weeks out [from a fight] to get focused and dedicated with my diet and get ready for the fight,” says Belcher. Roufus sharpens up Belcher’s Muay Thai technique and Belcher has the benefit of sparring with the many excellent strikers in the camp, including Pat Barry and Anthony Pettis. Roufus is very fond of Belcher’s intestinal fortitude in the cage, but equally impressed with the fact he is a good-practice player in training. “He will drill something to a T,” notes Roufus, who appraises Belcher’s ability to focus on exactly what needs to be done in training to ensure victory. “Even if his opponents in the gym know his game plan and he can’t perfect it, he’ll stick to it – no matter what – because all he cares about is winning fights.” Roufus adds that Belcher is a guy you’ll love to train with but hate to fight.

When not at Roufus’ gym in Milwaukee, Belcher has a handful of solid local fighters in Mississippi to train with and brings in some talented jiu-jitsu players and wrestlers, including black belts from Brazil. For his last bout, Belcher trained with Daniel Moraes from Florida in addition to former American Olympic wrestler, turned MMA fighter, Ben Askren. For strength and conditioning, Lyle Henley at The Athlete Factory facility has been a tremendous asset in ensuring Belcher never runs out of steam in the cage. Right after the victory over Cote, Belcher was back in the gym looking to add some new elements to his routine, including a hypoxic training system (which forces a fighter to breathe in less oxygen, raises red blood cells and improves cardio).

Belcher’s cardio will need to be at a premium level, because the competition is only going to get tougher. It’s a reality that Belcher has wanted to live from the get-go. “A lot of people don’t know that he asked to fight Kang, he asked to fight Akiyama, he wanted to fight Cote; Alan’s asking for these fights,” reveals Roufus. “That’s the cool thing about Alan – he wants to fight the best to be the best.” With the best already scheduled to fight, Belcher is content to knock off all contenders along the way to the top of the mountain. “There’s nobody really on a big winning streak or anything like that, so I kind of got to beat the guys that Anderson has beaten,” notes Belcher. He began that process with the win over Cote, and has once again asked for another great competitor (and Silva victim): Demian Maia.

Belcher received his wish and will face Maia on September 15th as the headline fight at UFC Fight Night 22. A win over Maia in a main-event fight would catapult Belcher to the top of the contender list, but Belcher admits the Brazilian will be no easy task to contend with. “He’s a great fighter, really good jiu-jitsu, and I’d be honored to fight him – it’d be a real big challenge trying to put together a game plan to beat him.”

Belcher’s future at middleweight is uncertain; much will ride on his next bout with Demian Maia. If he can pull it off it’ll be his first victory in a main event, as well as a win over a tough opponent. It will allow Belcher to finally move past that two-fight win streak, and potentially make him the number-one contender in the division.

How he plans to beat Maia remains to be seen – you never know what game plan to expect from Belcher due to his versatility. He’s been doing jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai for a dozen years and combining them into MMA for just as long. It’s hard to put Belcher in an uncomfortable position in the Octagon – whether he’s standing up, on his back, working from the top or in a scramble, Belcher has the ability to flow with any situation. “You can have a game plan; but whenever it goes the opposite to what you’re expecting, that’s when you find out what you’re made of.

“You’ve got to know if it doesn’t go the way you want that you’re going to take deep breaths and deal with it. I feel like that’s something I’m good at naturally and something I’ve improved on over the years, and one thing that’s going to take me to the next level.”

Belcher may be right. If there is one thing that is going to help him steamroll ahead of the competition it will likely be the sum of the whole, as opposed to the strength of one aspect of his game. Belcher isn’t the very best striker in the game, not the most devastating ground ‘n pounder, the most athletic wrestler, nor the deadliest BJJ player, but when you combine all the elements together you’ve got a fighter able to adapt to almost any situation. “I have the ability to change my styles. I’m not just a brawler. I can punch, I can brawl, but I can move away from my opponents and make them miss and all that,” says Belcher. “I’m not just a kicker. I fight in the clinch with punches, knees and elbows.”

Belcher is a chameleon in the cage, a man with a plethora of tricks in his arsenal ready to throw at his opponents. His well-rounded toolbox is his greatest asset, and his ability to flow and adapt to the changing demands of a fight marks him out as one of the middleweight division’s most dangerous fighters. It was his time in Thailand that imparted Belcher with the wisdom of embracing an eclectic style of attack; he witnessed a wide variety of styles in the Muay Thai ring. “You have the guy that stomps like an elephant and just elbows you, the guy that just comes in and clinches, one that just point fights with the teep [front kick] and then you’ve got the technicians, too,” he explains.

“It’s hard to have two styles, but my goal is to have all the different styles and be able to switch between them. The more versatile you can be, the more dangerous you are.”

The multi-talented middleweight

Belcher is a very diverse and well-rounded fighter in the cage, but he also has a diverse and eclectic background when it comes to musical talent. The middleweight plays a wide variety of instruments and dabbles in some recreational singing to relax between tough training sessions. “I play the guitar and sing, play the drums and I have a piano – I play a bit of everything,” notes Belcher on his varied musical skills. “I just do it for fun. I do it to relax and get my mind free of everything.”

He’s a lover of all forms of music and admires several artists, but there’s one that stands out in particular: “Johnny Cash is one of my all-time favorite artists, and he’s a great storyteller,” comments Belcher, who has a large tattoo of Cash’s face on his left arm. Belcher even hails from the same state Cash was born: Arkansas. “He grew up there and made his way up to the big time – it’s kind of like a story of a small-time guy from Arkansas making it to something bigger.” As Belcher racks up the bonuses, that sounds pretty familiar.

Belcher's bonuses

Belcher has won a combined total of $270,000 in bonuses in his last four fights. Belcher likes all his awards, but is hoping to earn more Submission of the Night honors, or possibly a Knockout of the Night. “I prefer getting the knockout or submission, because that means both guys weren’t trading back and forth – I want to dominate my fights from now on.”