[MMA NEWS ARCHIVES]
Many people regard UFC 205 as Conor McGregor’s finest performance. The victim? One Eddie Alvarez. The following is an article that captures Alvarez’s fresh thoughts in the immediate aftermath of the event. The story is presented in its original, unaltered form courtesy of the MMA News Archives.
On This Day Five Years Ago…
[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 14, 2016, 9:46 AM]
Eddie Alvarez knew he would be in for a battle against Conor McGregor Saturday night at UFC 205.
And while Alvarez was disappointed in the outcome, as he dropped the lightweight title, he was more disappointed in himself for how he fought.
“I fought a bad fight,” Alvarez said (thanks to MMAjunkie for the quotes). “The idea wasn’t to go in there and box and stand in front of him. I didn’t fight a good fight. We started throwing kicks, and the kicks were successful. I would have started throwing more. We didn’t wrestle enough.
“The idea was to go in there and wrestle. Wrestle a guy who likes to box, and I didn’t do that. Not quite sure why I didn’t do that. But I didn’t do it tonight, and I paid for it. He capitalized.”
Alvarez, who became the first-ever fighter to wear gold in the UFC and Bellator MMA when he finished Rafael dos Anjos earlier this year, believes the speed of the new two-division champion was what really bothered him the most.
“It was more speed (that got me),” Alvarez said. “I think I got dropped. The first time I was dropped, I remember being on my butt, and I was like, ‘Wow that was quick. Whatever that was, it was fast.’ I’ve been there before a lot of times in my career. I’ve been dropped. I don’t panic. I get my composure and get right back up. It was more – his speed and timing were very good.”
