When Eddie “The Underground King” Alvarez, 35, of the United States made his debut in Bellator MMA on April 3, 2009, he submitted Greg “The Hitman” Loughran, 36, of Northern Ireland. On November 19, 2011, the American mixed martial artist had his first loss in the promotion, formerly called Bellator Fighting Championships, when he was submitted by Michael “Iron” Chandler, 33, of the U.S.
On September 27, 2014, Alvarez made his Ultimate Fighting Championship debut. He lost to Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, 36, of the U.S. via unanimous decision.
On March 31, 2019, Alvarez made his ONE Championship debut in a ONE Lightweight World Grand Prix quarter-final bout. He was knocked out by Timofey Nastyukhin, 29, of Russia.
“Look, I got the first one out of the way,” Alvarez said. “I lost. No problem.”
“I did the same thing in the UFC and I honestly almost did the same thing in my debut in Bellator,” Alvarez continued. “I got dropped terribly. My debut in Bellator against an Irish kid that no one knew. I got caught pretty clean.”
“I bounced back and got the win but I’m not a big fan of my debuts, put it that way,” the American MMA veteran added. “So I got it out of the way, got it past me and now I can go full-on, go undefeated straight to the belt.”
Nastyukhin was supposed to face Lowen Tynanes, 28, of the U.S. in the ONE Lightweight World Grand Prix semi-finals. However, the two pulled out from the tournament due to injury and were replaced by Alvarez and Eduard “Landslide” Folayang, 34, of the Philippines.
“I go out there and I’ve given my all every time,” Alvarez shared. “But I think at every once in a while it’s good to take a loss and put the fire back in your belly and I think it’s a good time to have that. Sometimes, you need that fire to burn long enough to get to that world title.”
On August 2, 2019, Alvarez and Folayang will battle it out at “ONE: Dawn of Heroes” at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines. The latter is a former ONE Lightweight World Champion.
CONAN Daily 