Eddie Alvarez has been there and done that in MMA.
A constant provider of violence for more than two decades, “The Underground King” won championships in DREAM and Bellator before arriving in the UFC and capturing lightweight gold in 2016 to establish himself as an all-time great. Alvarez then moved on to ONE Championship following his UFC stint before landing in the BKFC ring in 2023. Safe to say, the man has seen a thing or two in the fight game.
As he surveys the current MMA landscape, Alvarez is liking what his newest fighting home is doing and believes it’s helped carve out a niche — unlike many other fallen organizations he’s been a part of.
The simple solution many promoters tend to ignore? Don’t make your goal competing with the UFC.
“[BKFC] reminds me of Bellator when it first started, because what Bellator did that was smart was that they kept their expenses low,” Alvarez explained on Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “They made sure they weren’t overspending, and then what they also did was they never compared themselves to the UFC. (Bellator founder) Bjorn Rebney would also be quoted all the time, ‘I don’t want to take on the 500-pound gorilla.’ Because he knew that there is no competition.
“This isn’t a competition between bare-knuckle and UFC. Create some sort of something different on maybe a different night [as the UFC] and don’t compete. Just be something cool and something different. Fans need that. Fans don’t want to see MMA all the time. Sometimes they want something different, and bare-knuckle is just that.”
In regards to the brand with which Alvarez made his name in North America, Bellator appears to be on its last legs heading into 2025. Acquired by PFL in late 2023, it’s been a bumpy path for Bellator in the aftermath of the merger, with shows recently getting canceled and many unhappy high-profile fighters and champions speaking out. Meanwhile, PFL has continued to tout itself as an MMA “co-leader” alongside UFC.
From Alvarez’s perspective, the promotion needs to pivot from that mentality before it’s too late.
“There is no competition with UFC,” Alvarez said. “UFC is in a league of their own and they’ll always be in a league of their own as far as MMA’s concerned.
“I think it’s foolish when I hear other promoters — almost every promoter I hear that gets in MMA promoting talks about how they’re better than the UFC or they can compete. It’s so silly. Stop that. It’s nonsense. You’re not going to be close and you should not talk like that. Just be your own thing. Be great at what you do. Try to differentiate yourself a little bit.”
Alvarez, 40, highlighted the early days of Bellator when reflecting upon his travels through the fight game. Similar to PFL, the promotion started with tournament-themed seasons and found great success. Events were held on Thursdays and maximized growth potential by hosting them in small casinos.
Unfortunately, not every promotion has gambled as wisely as Bellator arguably did in its youth. Alvarez doesn’t expect the never-ending cycle to change until new promoters learn to ignore the UFC’s shadow — whether with single entities or careless spending.
“Everybody else I’ve seen, they thought, ‘If I buy the big name, that will immediately give me some legitimacy,’ and they didn’t think about the long-term like making money, which is ultimately what you need to get to to make your investors happy,” Alvarez said.
“All I see is a lot of overspending from every other MMA organization that comes out. They come out, they spend a bunch of money, their investors get pissed, then they tank and they’re bankrupt in two or three years. A lot of them. UFC, they’ve lapped everyone twice and they’re lapping everyone again. There really is no other game in town when it comes to MMA.”
As for Alvarez, BKFC was the right avenue for the future Hall of Famer at this juncture. He’s not the focal point of the promotion or getting spotlighted as the reason why bare-knuckle boxing will be the next big thing, but he’s a star nonetheless and continuing to do what he does best.
After a 1-1 start to his BKFC career, Alvarez returns Jan. 5 to collide with Jeremy Stephens in the 165-pound KnuckleMania 5 main event. It’s a wild matchup that portends fireworks, but Alvarez is most thrilled about getting a hometown showcase in Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center.
“That’s a large part of the reason why I joined Bare Knuckle (Fighting Championship). Part of that was to deliver Philadelphia to Dave Feldman and bare-knuckle and make that my added value to the company,” Alvarez said. “I felt that would be a possibility. I haven’t fought in Philadelphia in [a long time]. The only time I ever fought in Philadelphia was against Roger Huerta in Bellator back maybe 13-14 years ago. It was an awesome experience then, and it will be a better one now.
“We were trying to find as big a name as we could, the same thing we’ve been doing since the beginning. We had Chad [Mendes] first, then Mike Perry. We were just trying to find a big name that fans would get excited about, and Jeremy pretty much was one of the only ones to step up in that realm of names.
“It didn’t really matter for me,” he continued. “As long as I got the Wells Fargo [Center], the opponent didn’t matter and it won’t matter the night of the fight. If Jeremy shows up, great. If he doesn’t and it’s someone else, it’s really not going to matter. In Philadelphia, I’m a different animal.”
Alvarez will be sidelined from action for a full year by the time fight night rolls around. It wasn’t necessarily by design, but Alvarez dealt with a broken orbital after his second-round knockout loss to Perry in December 2023, leaving him in no rush. He luckily was able to avoid surgery but still wanted to heal appropriately.
Between MMA and BKFC, it’s been a lengthy 42-fight career for “The Underground King.” Despite the loss in his last match, Alvarez has looked relatively fresh and reinvigorated in the bare-knuckle ring.
A looming retirement is inevitable and could make perfect sense in 2025, especially after Alvarez’s homecoming against Stephens, but for now, the thought isn’t present in the all-action brawler’s mind.
“The last five years, I’m back and forth with my family members,” Alvarez said of retirement. “Me and [my wife] Jamie talk about retiring and stuff like that, but I’m just kind of sick of talking about it. I just kind of do my own thing. If the deal is right to fight, if it feels right to fight, and I’m in the gym and feeling good, then I’ll go fight.
“I look at fighting as an opportunity. It’s not a career. I don’t think it’s a career and I never look at it as a career. It’s an opportunity to compete. As long as I can compete at a high level, I take advantage of the opportunity given to me.
“I’ve felt like retiring five, 10, 15 different times during my career, and I’ve never stuck to it,” he added. “I never talked to anybody about it publicly, but I’ve never stuck to my thoughts. My thoughts and feelings are crazy temporary. That’s all it’s ever came to how I feel about that. I really should not make decisions, especially based after or before a single fight. That won’t be a subject going into this fight at all.”
