Eddie Alvarez is the former UFC and Bellator lightweight champion. He recently revealed that he was initially confused by Conor McGregor’s animated cornering during his co-main event against Chad Mendes at BKFC 41.
There was a lot of anticipation leading up to the BKFC 41 co-main event between Eddie Alvarez and Chad Mendes. The event promised to be an incredible show, with both being highly skilled and experienced. And indeed, they did not disappoint. Alvarez walked away with a split decision victory after five rounds of bare-knuckle boxing.
Conor McGregor was in attendance that night. Throughout the match, he was visibly animated and seen shouting instructions at Mendes from ringside. At one point, McGregor yelled, “Upper cut!”, Alvarez ended up acting on it and landed a flush upper cut.
Eddie Alvarez didn’t even believe McGregor was in the audience when he was first told about it. He told Helwani:
“I heard them say, Conor McGregor’s here. Like, I was like kind of I was in the back kind of warming up and I was just like, Man, like, what the f**k they’re talking about? Like, I don’t I’m like, maybe I just. Maybe maybe I just like and like here and something or whatever.”
Later on he addressed the cornering viral moment:
“And most of the time when you see me or any of my teammates in there, we’re just doing what Mark Henry’s telling us to do is he’s yelling the codes we do them and often times when I’m in sparring. Mark Henry, your code, it’ll land clean.”
“And as soon as it lands clean, I’ll point to Mark and say, good call. Like, great call. That wasn’t me. That was you around giving you the credit for what just happened. While Connor yelled it out, he was yelling for uppercut, and I was kind of recognizing that Chad was hitting. He was doing a little hedge before he came under, and Connor picked it up”
Following his bout with Alvarez, Chad Mendes announced his retirement from professional combat sports.
Alvarez seems to be jazzed with the possibility of bareknuckle becoming a major sport.
Since 2014, Benny A. King has been fully immersed in the world of combat sports. Starting with a blog about Greco Roman wrestling, Benny’s passion for combat sports has led him to explore various disciplines.