Former UFC champion Eddie Alvarez talked about his MMA career recently including his tenure outside the UFC.
Alvarez is a former a ONE lightweight champion. He recently appeared in an interview with Chael Sonnen to talk about his MMA career and current standing.
Alvarez’ UFC contract is to this day one of the only UFC contracts to have become public. Alvarez was a champion in Bellator when he chose to sign with the UFC and his UFC contract was made public in a court filing.
Despite the fact he’s left the UFC he’s still making big bucks. Back in 2018 Alvarez said he signed an 8-figure-deal with ONE FC. Subsequently the information came out that he’s rumored to be making 850k per bout.
Alvarez recently addressed one peculiar call out. He was called out by a pro grappler turned mixed martial artist Garry Tonon despite not even being in the same division.
Tonon had an interesting trajectory. He had signed with ONE FC and made his MMA debut there and had initially started out in a heavier division. Naturally he called out one of the biggest names in ONE FC – Alvarez.
Sonnen brought this up in the video, to which Alvarez replied:
“That’s exciting, Garry did that. As soon as I entered, Garry Tonon started talking s**t, ‘I wanna fight Eddie. I wanna do this.’ For me, it was laughable. He was a weight class down, but I don’t think MMA-wise it’s going to be competitive.”
Tonon was knocked out by Thanh Le, ONE featherweight world champion, during his last bout. Since then Tonon has opted to compete in the 66kg division at ADCC – 11kg (24 lbs) lower than the division he’s competed in since 2013.
It very well could be that Tonon sees an opportunity to climb the ladder in a lower division of ONE FC as well.
Despite this, Alvarez expressed his appreciation and respect for Tonon’s grappling skills.
“I don’t think we’ve rolled. We rolled in the same room together and back really too far back for it to make sense. He’s gone levels and levels above in grappling where he took it to a whole different level. His grappling is phenomenal.” Alvarez said.
Alvarez is 38 years old with a current record consisting of 30 wins and 8 losses. He’s lost the last two at ONE FC – one via no contest due to strikes to the back of the head and one unanimous decision.