Eddie Alvarez Comes Out Of Self-Imposed Exile To Explain Loss To Donald Cerrone

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If you haven’t seen Eddie Alvarez around lately, you aren’t the only one.

After the UFC imported him from Bellator to take on Donald Cerrone at UFC 179, Alvarez faltered in his debut. The loss came after a lot of hype about him entering the UFC and after the match, Alvarez went into hiding by his own admission.

“I’ve kinda been a recluse lately,” Alvarez said on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour. “I’ve just been keeping away from Twitter. I apologize to my fans. I apologize to everyone. I haven’t talked much or did anything, but I needed a little bit of time after the fight. That’s all.”

Alvarez says the reason for his silence is how mad he was at himself for losing.

“I put a lot into this. I put a lot of sacrifice into it,” Alvarez said. “I moved my family from Philadelphia to Florida. I put a lot of people through a lot of sacrifices. For me to go out there and be anything but perfect, I get angry if I’m not. I made a couple of mistake during the fight. I wasn’t able to compete the way I wanted to compete. I came up short. It definitely wasn’t the night and it wasn’t the stage to do it on. I was angry. I’m still angry. I’ll get it figured out. There’s a couple of small adjustments that need to be made. I’ll make them adjustments and I’ll win my next one, for sure.”

With that said, the former Bellator lightweight champion says he doesn’t want to take anything away from his opponent’s win.

“I think I fought the first round well. Let me just say Cerrone did a good job of figuring some things out and sticking to his game plan. He did a better job than I did of executing that night. That’s what I’m most mad about. Usually I’m the one who’s able to execute. I’m the one who’s able to go out there and enforce my plan and he did a better job than I did. My hat’s off to him. He did a good job, real good job,” he said.

Alvarez also didn’t say he felt pressured to perform in his UFC debut.

“Pressure’s not something I deal with anymore in my career. It’s not an issue for me. If anything, I need to get myself a little more excited, get myself pumped up, slap myself a little bit, and get myself in the fight. Sometimes I need to take a punch or two just to get myself excited and let myself know that I’m in the fight.

I’m OK with losing, man,” Alvarez said defiantly. “I lose like every three years or so. Every three years I take a loss and then I go on a tear for the next three years. I understand you can’t win all the time. Sometimes it’s important to see the other side so you take winning for granted.”