Alvarez eager to show fans, new foes how he operates
For a long time, Eddie Alvarez acknowledges, he was lying to himself.
As he toured the rings and cages of the world, from Russia to Japan, winning mixed martial arts titles and earning accolades outside of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, he told himself the logo on the canvas didn’t matter. It made no difference whether he was winning in sold-out arenas or half-empty theaters as long as he was winning.
“But the truth is, it’s really important for everyone to watch,” Alvarez (25-3 MMA, 0-0 UFC) says. “You could have the most spectacular fight in the world, but if no one shows up and no one sees it, what does it matter?”
So when Alvarez heard he was being released from his contract with Bellator MMA, the promotion in which he was the lightweight champion, his reaction was a mix of joy and relief. He’d be free to sign with the UFC. He’d finally get a chance to test himself against the best and on the biggest stage in the sport.
But when he heard his first fight would be against perennial lightweight contender Donald Cerrone (24-6, 11-3) in the comain event of UFC 178 in Las Vegas on Saturday (10 p.m. ET, payper-view), that feeling gave way to something else.
It wasn’t fear, exactly, but Alvarez had seen enough of Cerrone’s fights to know he wasn’t getting an easy welcome to the UFC.
“That excited me, because when I step back and look at my career, the times I’ve had my best performances, my most devastating knockouts, when I was the most alert and focused, it was when I was fighting the most dangerous guys,” says Alvarez, 30. “Donald’s been on a tear. He’s been knocking guys out left and right. I like to feel on edge, a little uneasy. I do my best in those situations.”
While Alvarez knew exactly what he was getting himself into, Cerrone seems to prefer a sort of blissful prefight ignorance. Cerrone says he has never seen a single one of Alvarez’s fights.
“Not ever in my whole life,” Cerrone says. “Still haven’t.”
Part of that is strategy. If he starts watching clips of Alvarez at his best, Cerrone says, he’ll end up fixating on what the other guy does well instead of focusing on his own attack.
A win against Cerrone could land Alvarez in a position to challenge for the UFC’s lightweight title, but just as important is the introduction it might provide to fans who haven’t followed his career.
“I feel like I’ve done some pretty cool things in my career,” Alvarez says. “But I feel like if I’d done those same things in the UFC, I’d be living a little bit different of a life right now.”