“Don’t bring the dog out in me,” – Eddie Alvarez.
The “Underground King” has never really been one for talking smack about his opponents or offering detailed predictions for his fights, but he’s clearly making an exception for Conor McGregor.
Alvarez will put his “big-boy” 155 lb belt on the line in the main event of the historic UFC 205 in Madison Square Garden in November as “the Notorious” aims to make history by becoming the first fighter to hold two belts in separate UFC divisions simultaneously.
McGregor believes he’s going to have both belts around his shoulders at the end of the fight, predicting that he will knock out the “stocky, stuffed wrestler with an overhand” inside the first round. Alvarez has always maintained that he will win the fight, but until he spoke to FOX Sports recently, he had been reluctant to offer up any specific predictions of how the fight will play out.
If you don't know, now you know #UFC205 https://t.co/Omezx5ncIT
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It appears as though Alvarez isn’t listening to the likes of Michael Chandler and Firas Zahabi, who have suggested that his most likely route to victory would be in the latter round, as the undisputed lightweight king gave a second round finish prediction to Damon Martin. Alvarez believes that the fight could play out very similarly to McGregor’s first bout against Nate Diaz at UFC 196, which ended with the Stockton native forcing the tap with a rear-naked choke.
“I think we do it under the nine-minute mark. Big, big heavy shots, he goes down and then submission. I can see it ending much like the (Nate) Diaz fight where I land the heavy shot and then I finish with a submission.”
He then reiterated his stance that McGregor lacks the gameness of a champion, implying that the Irishman doesn’t have the grit to dig deep when the going gets tough.
“From what I’ve seen in the past and what he’s done in the past, (his heart) is very questionable and I’m not the only one who’s questioned it. I think he has quit in him and I think it takes a tad of adversity and him to get into a little bit of a fight to pull it out of him.”
“On November 12, I’m going to pull it out of him and I’m going to show it to millions of people and the crowd. Everybody’s going to see it. We’re going to reveal the quit.”
We’ll have to wait until November 12 to see if Alvarez can pull that quit out and reveal it to the world.
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