ONE Championship lightweight contender Eddie Alvarez will make a quick turnaround after his recent DQ loss when he returns at ONE on TNT 4.
Alvarez fought at ONE on TNT 1 earlier this month and the ending to his fight with Iuri Lapicus was extremely controversial, to say the least. After Alvarez took Lapicus to the ground and started to land some heavy shots, the referee deemed the punches illegal shots to the back of the head and, when Lapicus couldn’t continue, Alvarez was given a red card and disqualified. It was a very strange ending to a fight that Alvarez was dominating, and it led to figures such as Big John McCarthy blasting the referee for disqualifying the fighter.
After the fight, there was some talk about Alvarez possibly taking another fight in short order since he took zero damage against Lapicus, and now it looks like that will happen. Speaking to Nick Atkin of South China Morning Post, ONE Championship CEO Chatri Sityodtong confirmed that Alvarez will be fighting at ONE on TNT 4 later this month.
“Yes, if Eddie said that. Did he say that? If he said that, then yes, I guess the cat’s out of the bag. He is coming back to Singapore in short order, he will be fighting on ONE on TNT 4 and his opponent will be determined,” Sityodtong said.
“He’s [Alvarez] gonna fight the No 5-ranked lightweight contender because Marat Gafurov is No. 5 and he faces Ok Rae-yoon, and the winner of that match will take on Eddie Alvarez, so Eddie still has a shot at breaking into the top five rankings.”
In addition to revealing Alvarez’s next fight, Sityodtong also confirmed that the DQ is under review and they believe the findings of the review will be revealed in the coming days.
“Factually there were illegal blows, factually the referee did give two warnings. But factually I can also say the DQ is under review. Eddie and his team asked for a review and so the whole committee are voting on it based on the footage, and hopefully we’ll have the results of the review over the next several days,” Sityodtong said.
Do you think Eddie Alvarez should get a title shot if he wins this fight at ONE on TNT 4?