Thiago Alves, American Top Team members staying in South Florida through Hurricane Irma

Thiago Alves has a tough fight next weekend against Mike Perry at UFC Fight Night 116. He has a potentially bigger fight in front of him before that, though, as he prepares to weather a dangerous storm.

Alves (22-11 MMA, 14-8 UFC) and several other American Top Team members based in South Florida have posted on social media they won’t be leaving the area even though Hurricane Irma is expected to make landfall Sunday morning.

We are not leaving!!! @americantopteam #hurracaineirma

A post shared by Thiago 'Pitbull' Alves ???????? (@thiagoalvesatt) on Sep 8, 2017 at 9:45am PDT

Hurricane Irma is listed as a Category 5, making it the most dangerous kind of storm. It’s already caused catastrophic damage in the Carribean on its way to South Florida.

If Hector Lombard – another ATT member who fights Anthony Smith next week – and Alves had decided to leave early for Pittsburgh, site of the FS1-televised event, nobody would blame them.

Alves explained why he isn’t, via MMAFighting.com:

“(The hurricane) is going west, so things are getting better,” Alves told MMA Fighting. “We’ll wait and see.”

“I’ll stay with the family here,” he added. “When it’s over, I’ll go to war.”

Alves, who became a father in 2016, says that his house is not in a risky area in Florida.

“I have built in shutters at home, and I have a generator as well for when the power goes down, and plenty of fuel to use,” Alves said. “It’s just wait and see. We have lots of water and food. We will just wait.

We here at The Blue Corner wish Alves and all ATT members staying behind a safe next few days as they deal with Hurricane Irma.

For more on UFC Fight Night 116, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

The Blue Corner is MMAjunkie‘s official blog and is edited by Mike Bohn.