Eddie Alvarez is one of the most sought after free-agents on the MMA market right now.
In mid-December the UFC made Alvarez an offer in which Bellator had two weeks to match. On January 3rd according to numerous sources, Bellator had matched the contract in which the UFC had offered and that was that.
The former Bellator lightweight champion revealed on today’s episode of “The MMA Hour” that negotiations had taken a turn for the worse and his former employer had in fact sued him.
“Everyone heard that Bellator has matched and what not. It’s such a difficult situation. We went to settlement maybe a a couple of days ago. We had a settlement meeting where we were supposed to settle our differences and everything was supposed to get worked out . Long story short, I was sued thirty minutes after our settlement agreement was over. There was some tension in the air and I’m trying not to get too frustrated in the meantime of what’s going on.”
Alvarez stated that he liked the deal made by the UFC and the counter-offer from Bellator was no even close to being the same. He even compared the deals to a fine dining restaurant to a McDonalds.
“No we don’t believe it was matched at all. I want to give details to you guys, but I’m not allowed because were in the middle of a pending lawsuit, I guess. All I can say is, like I said on twitter the other day. If I wanted to go to dinner with one guy, and another guy asked me to dinner. And the intentions of guy number one were to take me to fine dining restaurant to eat lobster and the intentions of the second guy is to take me to McDonald’s, then guy number two just believes that dinner is dinner. And dinner isn’t dinner. There is a huge difference when talking about MacDonald’s and fine dining. The two we don’t believe are comparable.
When I signed with Bellator four years ago, I read everything. I’m a man of my word and I’m willing to fulfill every obligation and I did that. I held my end of the bargain, fought every fight they wanted me to fight and the truth is, it’s not a match. A match, in my book, a match is if I was to fight for one promotion and got paid ten dollars, then the other promotion would pay me ten dollars. That’s not what’s going on here. They’re going to the media saying it’s a match, not even close. The terms are not the same, not even, no, not the same. I don’t know what the strategy is here. To us, it’s plain and simple. If this goes before anybody, they are going to see pretty much that it is not a match. I’m disappointed. I gave a lot of my life to Bellator, to this promotion, and I’ve let them know how I feel and I don’t get much back in return.”
Alvarez last fought in October when he knocked out Patricky Freire in the very first round. The Bellator 76 fight was the last on the former champs Bellator contract.
It seems as if Alvarez’s road back to the cage is going to be set-back by legal issues.
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