ONE Championship: Eddie Alvarez ‘one or two fights away’ from title shot, says Chatri
- ONE CEO expects ‘big surge’ from Alvarez but former UFC champ will have to wait for Christian Lee opportunity
- ‘If he has his mind right, he can beat anybody in the world … but he’s had lapses in mental belief,’ says Chatri
ONE CEO and founder Chatri told SCMP MMA the former UFC and Bellator champ is “one or two fights away” from challenging “The Warrior” and potentially completing an unprecedented hat-trick of MMA world titles.
“I’d love to see Eddie eventually contend for the title. Eddie against Christian would be a phenomenal fight,” Chatri said. “The young lion vs the grizzled veteran … but I wouldn’t put Eddie in the veteran category yet, he still has his prime days ahead.
“He’s had his ups and downs. I think he’s gonna have a big surge here. He wants to be the first person to secure world titles in the three major organisations. He’s conquered UFC and Bellator, so he wants to conquer the ONE world title, and then be the only person on the planet to do that.
“I think he needs another one or two fights. His debut, he got knocked out in the first round [vs Timofey Nastyukhin]; he was losing to Eduard Folayang decisively, everyone would agree, before he staged the biggest comeback possibly of his career. So kudos to Eddie.
“They didn’t rank Eddie in the top five. I would probably put him in the top five, but I don’t think the rankings are far off from reality. Eddie is probably top seven or five. People could argue he’s top five, I think definitely in the top 10, but the lightweight division in ONE Championship is super stacked.”
