Eddie Alvarez Reveals Real Reason He Signed With ONE Championship

Recently, former UFC champion Eddie Alvarez made waves in the MMA world by signing with Asian promotion ONE Championship. Now it’s time Alvarez reveals the real reason he made the big change.

Alvarez appeared on today’s episode of ‘Ariel Helwani‘s MMA Show’ (via ESPN.com) to discuss the differences between ONE’s offer and the UFC’s. Of course, it came down to money, but there was one major difference apart from that:

“When I left the table at the UFC and said I wanted to go and explore, this is the deal I had in my mind.

“ONE made me a partner in their promotion. It was more of a partnership than, ‘Hey, come on as a fighter. Here’s your money to fight,’ and that’s it. They made me a true partner. It’s a package deal. It’s nothing like a normal MMA contract. They fully committed to me, and we are full committing back.”

There’s no exact detail on just what Alvarez’ partnership with ONE will entail just yet. However, it’s a supremely interesting dynamic for them to entice their biggest-ever signing with.

Eddie’s Advice To Fighters

Alvarez said he wouldn’t have been able to reach such a gamechanger of a deal if he didn’t test free agency. He was willing to do – and always has been.

That willingness is so important to fighters, he said that every top pro should test the waters. If they didn’t, they would never realize their full value as a result:

“The value of free agency today is so incredible. For any fighter to give that up is foolish. If you really want to make money in this sport and test how much you’re worth, you become a free agent. I would say there’s no other option.

“Leverage always goes to the man who is willing to walk. There hasn’t been one single contract during my career where I wasn’t willing to walk if I felt like I wasn’t going to get paid what I felt I was worth. If you’re willing to walk, you hold all of the cards.”

Alvarez was also to pull off this momentous deal even after he lost his last UFC bout to Dustin Poirier. He was criticized for testing free agency and losing, but it ultimately played out in his favor in a huge way. In that sense, he said the loss didn’t hurt his value at all:

“Monetarily did it hurt me? No. Not at all,” he said. “There’s a lot of promotions with a lot of money, and there isn’t a lot of free agents. There’s barely any. So it’s supply and demand.”

A Bold Claim

Finally, Alvarez teased that he was not the only big-name signing to ONE Championship. More huge signings were coming soon, and it would signify a huge shift in power towards the promotion:

“I’m not the last large signing in the next month or so,” he said. “There will be a shift, a massive shift, in power towards ONE Championship.”

The promotion is certainly making some major noise in the MMA world. Whether or not they rise up to take on the UFC will remain to be seen.

They’re making all the rights moves, however, and Alvarez says there are more to come.