Relaxed Eddie Alvarez primed for fight of his life against Conor McGregor at UFC 205 in New York

Eddie Alvarez waited to feel the magnitude of the moment as he stood eye-to-eye with Conor McGregor on a Madison Square Garden stage. Alvarez, hyping the biggest fight of his career, wondered if nervousness would kick in as he stared down McGregor. Maybe anger. An adrenaline rush, something, that would sound the emotional bell inside his body that he shared space with one of UFC’s top fighters.

He had listened to McGregor yap and boast with all the theatrics reserved for a daytime talk show, and when the time hit in September for the UFC 205 headliners to finally face off, Alvarez felt nothing.

“My heart rate didn’t go up not two beats,” Alvarez said. “I was standing in front of that man and I didn’t feel anything. I don’t know what was going on. Maybe I was just off that day. But this guy made me feel nothing.”

Trash talk? Perhaps, but the 32-year-old Alvarez insisted he had a detached demeanour because he viewed McGregor as just another victim on his roll call of champions that he will beat down for a win.

“I don’t get caught up in names,” Alvarez said. “I just fight.”

His most pressure-packed fight yet – the one that could help launch Alvarez into McGregor-type paydays – is ahead.

Alvarez makes his first UFC lightweight title defence against McGregor on Saturday night at MSG in the promotion’s return to New York for the first time since the state lifted the mixed martial arts ban earlier this year. McGregor, the Irish fighter with the brash public persona that made him one of UFC’s top draws, is also the featherweight champion and has vowed to walk out of the cage with both championship belts draped over his shoulders.