“The idea of free agency today is so undervalued,” Eddie Alvarez told Brendan Schaub on Below the Belt. “Fighters don’t understand. Fighters are captive, kind of, in their own mind thinking, ‘If I’m not here, I’m not going to make money,’ and that’s not the truth.
“There are arenas selling out for MMA all over the world and until you become a free agent and explore that, you’ll never know. When you look at the UFC’s model, $4.4 billion when you look at their model, what do they do? For their infancy, they were on Spike [TV]. They used Spike’s audience. They used everything about Spike and then they jumped to Fox, jumped to ESPN. They don’t re-sign.
“They don’t stay with a company, they use their leverage,” Alvarez continued. “They put up points for that company and then they go to the other girl who wants them even more. Why wouldn’t a fighter do the same thing? Why wouldn’t they become a free agent and go to the next girl who’s willing to pay them? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Eddie Alvarez has fought in several different MMA organizations over the course of his 36 fight career. Having held world titles in practically all of those as well, ‘The Underground King’ has definitely become aware of his value.
After a thrilling and long-awaited eight-fight UFC run, Alvarez explored his options once again and wound up settling with the Singapore-based powerhouse that is ONE Championship.
The former UFC and Bellator lightweight champion will look to capture some more gold in his new fighting home and that begins on May 31 at ONE: A New Era when he kicks off their lightweight Grand Prix against Timofey Nastyukhin.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/7/2019