It appears as if the new UFC Lightweight Champ has his sights set on the big money fight everyone wants, and he has wasted no time calling for it.
Eddie Alvarez appeared on CBS Sports Radio and fired his first shot as Lightweight Champion at current UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor. He questions McGregor from a pure fighting standpoint as well as what he views as his manufactured path to the Featherweight title and global stardom.
“I don’t know him personally, but thank God he’s good at talking because he can’t fight for sh–…” he said. “They’re very good at tweaking this perception. If I can put the right guy with the right mouthpiece in front of the right opponents, we can build a champion, but he doesn’t really have to beat the best guys; we just have to give him the right match-ups. This is what this guy’s been given.”
McGregor’s next fight is his rematch with Nate Diaz at UFC 202. As for Alvarez, the new Lightweight Champion wants to prove his assertion that McGregor is overrated in the Octagon.
Analysis: Another case of the McGregor effect. It’s clear to everyone in the UFC, especially the fighters in the lower weight classes, that McGregor is the money fight, the guy who can finally get them the pay-per-view numbers that historically were reserved for the larger fighters, and they all want a piece of the pie. As for the actual comments Alvarez made about the quality of opponents that McGregor has beaten, he is correct that the UFC had a hand in making the ultra-marketable McGregor a champion. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds, and whether UFC tries to force another super fight in the near future.
Leave a Reply