Eddie Alvarez questions Conor McGregor’s ability to handle himself after a round and a half of action.
Throughout his professional career, Conor McGregor had only gone past the third round once, during his rematch against Nate Diaz at UFC 202 last August. And as far as his performance in that fight went, a number of critics such as Firas Zahabi put his ability to handle such grueling situations in question.
“His ability to fight 5 rounds, for me I still think needs a lot of work and needs to be addressed. And I don’t think he has the time to address this in his fight,” Zahabi said in a recent video he released.
It is a sentiment that Eddie Alvarez apparently shares. Having gone the distance in title fights is not new for the current lightweight champion, as he had done a few times during his stint at Bellator. It is an advantage he feels he holds against “The Notorious”, whom he believes would eventually fade once the fight goes past the second round.
“He's very technical, he's a clean good fighter for a round, round and a half, but when you get deeper into a fight we've all seen him in moments of adversity and it doesn't look good to me--it doesn't look like championship caliber,” Alvarez said on The Countdown with Michael Bisping (via FloCombat). “It doesn't look like someone who's willing to take a beating and get on that stool and come back out and give it back to the guy."
Alvarez claims he along with trainer Mark Henry have been preparing to face McGregor, developing a game plan around him. With that said, the Philadelphia native is more than assured that he would come out on top, and in brutally convincing fashion.
"We got a good scanner report, a good game plan, and I think just stylistically it's my fight to win. I won't say it's easy, especially against a guy who has the crowd like that on his side, but I'm going to get this job done and I'm going to get it done violently and quickly."
Alvarez and McGregor will headline UFC 205 on November 12th in New York City.