After his latest toils with the scale, UFC welterweight fighter Thiago Alves, hopes to remain as such. That is, he hopes that for his next fight, Joe Rogan isn't announcing his name and "middleweight" in the same sentence as he steps onto the scale.

Alves recently spoke with MMA Fighting and said this:

"I had a chance to look back at the situation. I know I have things to correct ... It was just a half-pound, so I'm sure my body could have flushed it out. But I didn't want to. I just wanted to concentrate on the fight. It was just easier for me to give up the money. Yes, we fight for money, but you also fight to win, and at the time, I was thinking I didn't want to cut the weight. I was just focused on getting ready to fight. When you're cutting weight and dehydrated, you don't always think right. In the future, that won't happen again. It can't happen again ... I appreciate the support I've gotten. When things like this happen, you see people's true colors. I don't care about the people who've turned their backs on me. I just focus on the ones who appreciate me. That's what's important to me and I won't let them down. I'm going to take this thing to the next level. I'm going to make it happen. I know what I've been through and I see things clearly now. Nothing's holding me back."

Alves is determined to stay at 170 and change people's perceptions of him as somebody who struggles to make weight. He's now employed the services of Mike Dolce, famous for his "Dolce Diet" in order to better control his weight cut.

It'll be interesting to see over the course of the next few months, just who wins the battle between Alves and UFC President Dana White. White's stance post UFC 117 was that Alves should move to middleweight, but ultimately it is the fighter's choice and clearly Alves wants to stay a welterweight.

However, actions speak louder than words and one thing is for sure, Alves is on his last grace.