Eddie Alvarez is set to make his UFC debut tonight at UFC 178 in the co-main event against Donald Cerrone.

Ahead of the bout, Alvarez feels that many are counting him out, and he plans on putting on a spectacle on the big stage tonight.

He spoke with MMAFighting.

“I think [Cerrone] is a little past a mediocre Muay Thai fighter, with a good mind of MMA. Stripping everything else away, the cowboy hat and everything else, the fans thinking that he’s God — it’s unbelievable what they think of this guy — my own assessment of him, my real assessment as a fighter, I understand what he’s good at, I understand what he’s weak at, and I’m going to go in the cage, I’m going to move, I’m going to find my openings, and I’m going to do something special.”

“They only go for what they’re comfortable with, they never look outside the box. They don’t look at a guy like me and then go look at my fights and go, ‘oh, this is a good style match-up, actually.’ They go, ‘Donald Cerrone is very popular! Donald Cerrone is the guy with the cowboy music and s—!’ They just love him, and they assume I ain’t got a shot in the world.

“It makes me laugh, it makes me smile. It’s actually good for me because the odds are playing in my favor. I’ve never had this good of odds going into a fight. Ever. I’ve never had this good of odds, and it probably will happen again. So if you like money, you like to make money, you should probably do it now.”

“When I fight guys who are really dangerous, when I fight on a big stage and there’s a lot of eyes on me, I step up. I always have in the past. I always step up. I don’t know if it’s my inner show-off, or what it is, but I step up and I step up in a big way. I move in ways that I don’t even know I’m capable of, and that never goes good for my opponents. Man, I’m looking forward to feeling that.”

The former Bellator MMA lightweight champion was ranked surprisingly low in the UFC’s lightweight rankings upon his signing, coming in at #14.

Do you think he will be able to best Cerrone tonight?