Eddie Alvarez will take on Iuri Lapicus at ‘ONE on TNT’ in Singapore on April 7th. The former UFC and Bellator champion has been out of action since August 2019, where he beat Eduard Folayang at ONE: ‘Dawn of Heroes’.
‘The Underground King’ is currently not ranked in the top 5 of the lightweight division, but believes a win over a Lapicus, coupled with a big performance, will put him on the path to a title shot,
“It’ll start with Iuri, and it will end with Christian (Lee), or whoever has that world title around their waist,”
“I try to focus on winning, but I can’t run from myself, I get hit, and a fight begin. I’m sure when we get in there, and Iuri hits me, and we get into an exchange, the real winner will be the American fans,” Alvarez said.
Long road
Alvarez has endured a long road back to competition. He missed out on the final of the lightweight grand prix due to injury and was unable to compete in 2020 because of the pandemic.
Looking back on his hiatus, he said,
‘Of course its been frustrating this game is about momentum building momentum and creating momentum it was unfortunate I would have liked to come in the final but I twisted my ankle and just like I had an unfortunate situation (with the injury) ONE Championship and the rest of the world had an unfortunate situation with Covid.”
However he wasn’t too upset to take a break from fighting,
“I’m just excited to get back in there I’ve been fighting 17 years since I was 19 so if I get a few months or been a year where a promotion doesn’t call me for a fight I’m not the saddest guy in the world. I feel like I have reinvented myself over and over and I will reinvent myself again.”
Busy schedule
Alvarez has made it quite clear that he wants to be the first man to secure titles in all three major MMA promotions and he’s hoping to have an active year in 2021, saying,
“Ideally 2021 I want to fight in April i want to fight again in July and then I’d like to fight again before the holidays or even during the holidays so in a perfect world I fight three times this year back to back, thats the ideal situation.”
“Whoever it is it is I never ever pick my opponents I think Chatri’s good at that and Matt Hume is excellent at making exciting matches and I’m sure they will put someone in front of me who will put on a show, it never really mattered who my opponent was I’m going to go out there and try to be as violent as possible, put something on that fans will love.”
