ONE Championship chairman Chatri Sityodtong has told SCMP that MMA contracts have been sent to Eddie Alvarez and “Dagi” Arslanaliev for an early 2021 bout in Asia. Former UFC and Bellator lightweight champ Alvarez has been bullish about feeling he has the resume to walk straight into a title fight with ONE champ Christian Lee, despite going 1-1 since joining the Singapore-based martial arts organisation two years ago. But with “The Warrior” (13-3) making his first defence against Iuri Lapicus (14-0) at Inside The Matrix on October 30, “The Underground King” (29-6) will have to earn it. “Eddie’s gonna be coming back early next year. We’ve already set a date and a card for him, and now we’re just finalising his opponent,” Chatri said. “So it’s most likely gonna be Eddie Alvarez vs Dagi, I think [matchmaker] Matt Hume has given out offers to the both of them, we’re just trying to finalise things. “Dagi lost to Christian Lee in the world grand prix final. I think everybody was expecting Dagi to steamroll Christian – he was just relentless, killing everybody in the division. But Christian won. It’s an important fight for Dagi to face Eddie.” Alvarez had been set to fight Arslanaliev (8-2) in the final of the lightweight grand prix at ONE: Century in Tokyo in October 2019 but withdrew with an ankle injury exacerbated in a comeback win vs former champ Eduard Folayang (22-9). “The fight hasn’t been made yet but it’s been offered, so let’s see if both sides agree, but yes I’d love to have Eddie back early next year,” Chatri added. ONE: Bi Nguyen says Angela Lee should give up title if return drags on “The Covid thing, being down three or four months, really put a backlog of fights we already had booked, so we’ve got to cycle through all that first and then we can get to all these other fights. “DJ [Demetrious Johnson] has also been offered for early next year, against Adriano [Moraes]. That should be a good fight.” Alvarez’s fellow former UFC champ Johnson won the ONE flyweight grand prix in Tokyo to earn a shot at champ Moraes, but the coronavirus pandemic saw an original April 2020 date in Chongqing, China scrapped Chatri confirmed he is looking at bringing the American pair Alvarez and Johnson back to Asia, where he suggested ONE is close to finalising deals to return to some of its other strongholds cities. “That’s the plan right now [Asia],” he said. “A few things are in the works. We were definitely planning to throw a US show this year but Covid happened so we put that on the back burner. But we are in discussions with our broadcast partner Turner. “We’re talking to many different parties in many different countries. There’s a lot of moving parts. We’re at the tail end of some of the discussions and some interesting things could happen.”