One of the biggest topics currently in mixed martial arts concerns the biggest free agent, which is former Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez.
Alvarez (24-3) broke his silence on his free agency situation earlier this week on “The MMA Hour” with Ariel Helwani, which he gave his side to the story on why he felt Bellator has not matched the offer made by the UFC.
Since Monday, Alvarez has been quiet with the exception of answering fans questions on Twitter. However, that changed on Friday night when he appeared on “Inside MMA” on AXS TV.
Alvarez had nothing new to report on the weekly MMA show and still believes that Bellator has not matched the offer that he received from the UFC.
“Our decision was to not agree and sign to the Bellator match,” Alvarez said on Inside MMA. “It wasn’t a match and that is our stance and what we believe. I am a fighter and I am not good at this stuff and speak as well as Bjorn Rebney. I don’t have the ability to sway peoples minds as good as he does, I can only fight. I am going to leave it up to the legal team and my management to do their job and present to the court to let them know that this is not a match.”
Earlier in the week, Rebney told Mike Chiappetta of MMAFighting.com that his organization had matched the deal “dollar for dollar, term for term and section for section.”
However, Alvarez and his management team do not believe that Bellator has matched every term for term in the deal and states that they did change terms in the contract.
“He claims that he matched everything term for term, he didn’t change anything and that’s not true. Taking Fox out and adding Spike is a change and it’s a term. He needs to match every term, that’s why he was told and that’s what I’m being told. It seems like they didn’t match and I’m being told they did not match. I’m sure Glenn Robinson (Alvarez’s manager) has my best interest in mind and I trust him.”
It does not appear that this contract situation will be handled outside of a court room and a judge will ultimately decide if Bellator did match the UFC offer.