One Championship: Eddie Alvarez’s career at a crossroads after shock defeat
- Former UFC fighter’s ego looked as bruised as his face after Tokyo humbling
- ‘I’m pretty sure everybody knows who Timofey Nastyukhin is now’, says Demetrious Johnson
The former UFC lightweight champion had brushed off talk of a trilogy fight with Shinya Aoki at Thursday’s pre-fight press conference. “I’m not being disrespectful but a lot of people are asking me about Shinya. He don’t even hold the belt,” Alvarez said.
How things can turn on a dime. The Philadelphian “Underground King” was stunned by the unheralded Russian, Timofey Nastyukhin, in the quarter-finals of the lightweight grand prix at Ryogoku Sumo Hall, while Aoki closed out an incredible “One: A New Era” by shocking Eduard Folayang to win the lightweight title in the main event. Alvarez’s defeat, a first-round TKO where he crumpled to the floor after punches to the head, sent shock waves around the world of mixed martial arts.
“I got to watch that fight, I was in the same locker room as Timofey,” said Demetrious Johnson, Alvarez’s fellow debuting former UFC alumni. “He looked phenomenal, Eddie did too. Timofey just a nasty striker, he was able to catch Eddie and put him away.