Dana White has responded to Eddie Alvarez, this after the former UFC lightweight champion spoke out against the promotions interim titles.

Alvarez, who will make his ONE Championship debut later this month in Tokyo, had recently referred to interim titles as “the saddest thing that could happen in the sport”.

“Look, this is a serious problem. I’m laughin’, but it’s nothing to joke about.” stated Alvarez. “We’re all part of the problem, all of us are. When an interim title is given… And the media makes a big fuss of it and a fighter makes a big fuss of it and a fan makes a big fuss of it, an interim title has value. That’s the saddest thing that can happen in the sport.”

Dana White was promoting April’s UFC 236 fight card yesterday in Las Vegas, an event which is set to feature two interim title fights, where he responded to the recent comments made by Eddie Alvarez.

“Everybody who is up here today, whoever wins that belt, they move into the title fight,” White said (via MMAFighting). “And I saw some talk the other day from Eddie Alvarez. I like Eddie, I have a great relationship with Eddie, but he was talking about how, you give interim titles so you don’t have to pay the guys so much or some weird comment like that.”

Dana White continued:

“When you win the interim title belt, you’re looked at as the titleholder. So, when you go into a title fight, both guys share in the pay-per-view revenue. If you’re a contender without the interim title, you don’t. So, there’s nothing bad about holding an interim belt going into a title fight.”

UFC 236 takes place April 13 in Atlanta, Georgia. The event is headlined by an interim lightweight title fight between Max Holloway and Dustin Poirier.

In the co-main event of UFC 236, Kelvin Gastelum and Israel Adesanya will square off for the promotions interim middleweight title.