When former Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez knocked out Rafael dos Anjos to claim UFC gold in July 2016, the world was undoubtedly his oyster.
Yet just four months later, ‘The Underground King’ would be brutally knocked out himself by Conor McGregor in one of the most one-sided beatdowns in UFC championship history.
So, if there was a way to go back in time to that fateful night at Madison Square Garden, what one change would Eddie Alvarez like to have made?
Eddie Alvarez opens up on what he’d change about the Conor McGregor fight
For Conor McGregor, UFC 205 represented one of the best title-winning performances that we’d ever seen in the octagon; for Alvarez, it was a nightmare that still weighs heavy on his mind to this day.
Speaking to UFC icons Michael Bisping and Paul Felder, ‘The Underground King’ would reveal that the one thing he’d change wouldn’t be his gameplan or tactics, but the mindset he entered the cage with that night.
“At [UFC] 205 when I fought Conor, I was coming off winning the world title and for me, it wasn’t so much the fight with Conor that was overwhelming, it was my change in lifestyle being UFC champion that was overwhelming for me.”
“If I could go back in retrospect, I would have given myself a little bit of time to digest it before I actually fought as a defending champion.”
Being a UFC champion has countless benefits for a fighter and their family, but that extra attention from the media and wider fanbase is something that athletes continue to struggle with.
“The whole whirlwind of media obligations and all that, I never wanted any of it – I wanted money, and I wanted the belt, but I didn’t understand that world of media, or having to be somewhere and talk, talk, talk about a fight.”
Whilst Alvarez ‘forgave himself’ for such a poor performance at UFC 205, he also acknowledged that it’s tough to think about a portion of the fanbase only knowing him from being knocked out.
“It’s very difficult because it is how you are defined by a large audience because maybe they’ve only seen you that one time… I’ll never be able to truly digest it in a good way, but it happened.
“It was an experience I had, and the fight week was fun, the build-up was fun, I would’ve liked to have competed better.”
Eddie Alvarez offers to buy out the TV rights to his MMA career
Alvarez returns to combat sports action against former UFC fighter Jeremy Stephens at BKFC: Knuckle Mania 5 on January 25, but is also now picking a fight with his former promotion.
Following the recent revelation that the Bellator MMA promotion is ‘dead’, Alvarez has offered to buy out the TV rights to his esteemed career.
“Hey, Bellator MMA, I was thinking now would be a great time to negotiate the rights to my fights I had during my time there,” wrote Alvarez on X (Twitter) late last night.
“I’d like to offer $ 7 dollars in total and I’d be willing to go as high as $10 if you included a signed poster of Bjorn Rebney.”
Arguably the single best Bellator fight in history was Alvarez’s first insane showdown with Michael Chandler, with ‘The Underground King’ even calling on his former rival to help him out with the rights.
“Fun fun times,” said Alvarez under a video of their 2011 scrap: “If you wanna go halves and buy the rights to these fight so our kids can have em, I just offered Bellator $7 dollars lmk.”