Eddie Alvarez talks UFC 223 and Conor McGregor.

UFC 223 is headlined by the best fight possible in MMA: Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov will finally square off for the Lightweight belt. This matchup has along and vexed history, as it has been scheduled 4 times now.

The first three fell through due to two injuries and one instance of missed weight on the part of Khabib. Now the fight has received something of a cursed status in the MMA community, with many fans still skeptical that the event will stay together until April 7th in Brooklyn.

One such skeptic is former champion Eddie Alvarez, speaking on The MMA Hour, he said
“They have not been able to make this fight. Every time they book it, they’re not able to make the fight. Either Khabib gets hurt or Tony gets hurt or someone gets hurt.

“This is a theory, it’s just an opinion on my part — this fight is not going to happen.”

The UFC has said that this fight will be for the undisputed Lightweight belt but they have yet to strip Conor McGregor of that belt. Eddie thinks that this is hedging their bets and capitalizing on promotional opportunity.

“They’re not going to strip the champion and then have this fight fall through and not have a champion.

“So, I think the day of weigh-ins, they’re going to strip [McGregor]. It’s going to make real big news, and they’re going to have a title fight and it’s also going to make big news. So it’s going to make for a lot of publicity in one day, and that’s my theory.”

Alvarez still believes that one of the two combatants will not make it to the Octagon. He and Kevin Lee have supplied themselves as potential replacements should anything go awry.

“I’m probably still going to end up fighting one of those guys. That fight probably is going to get scrapped,” Alvarez said. “They’re 0-for-3 there, so somebody might get scrapped, so I’ll be ready for that.”

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