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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Eddie Alvarez is fighting for what he thinks is right against Viacom and Bellator MMA, pressing forward with his lawsuit despite the time and effort being taken from the prime of his career. But as things continue to drag on, he's become increasingly disenfranchised, and he's now speaking out to bring further details to light.
He did just that late Sunday in an interview with Jeremy Botter at BleacherReport.com, explaining why he feels confident in his case against Bellator, and revealing more about how things got to this point.
Alvarez began the conversation explaining that he had perceived from previous conversations with Rebney that he had fulfilled his obligations, and that Bellator would let him go if the UFC came in with a high offer. He knew they'd take a stab at keeping him if it was low enough, but in the end he reiterated that they didn't match the actual offer from the UFC despite their claims.
"The way it was said is that they matched everything number for number, dollar for dollar," Alvarez said. "And even if you did match everything that you said you did, what you're saying to me, 'We matched everything number for number,' we did everything we had to do. What he's saying is that, 'Our pay-per-view is just as great as the UFC's pay-per-view.'
"We all played the match game when we were younger. It's supposed to be exactly the same, you know? If you have a red card, your next card has to be red. It can't be maroon. It can't be any other shade of red, or it's not a match. And the opportunities are different. The pay-per-views are different. It's almost impossible to call it a match."
He's got another supposed trump card in his pocket as well, as he dropped a potential bombshell regarding the entire proceeding when describing why they haven't matched: Viacom tried to change his contract last minute before he negotiated with the UFC.
"They're not reading the whole contract. Not reading it all the way through. I've read the whole thing, and if you read it all the way through, it's guaranteed," Alvarez said of the UFC's promise to give him a pay-per-view fight. "They're giving me the fight. The reason they have to put 'intention' in there is because you can't guarantee a fight. You don't know if I'm going to suffer something that keeps me out of the fight. That's why you can't put that it's 100 percent guaranteed. That's impossible to do with any contract for a promoter. But, if you read it in its entirety, they're giving me the fight. One hundred percent giving me the fight, when you read the whole contract. UFC wasn't trying to pull a fast one by saying 'intention,' you know?
"What's funny is that they're the king of picking out a word, right? And saying, "Oh, they said intention." But what they didn't tell anyone is this: They gave me my release early from my negotiation period. I was given that early release. And it was because they were so grateful and they were so saintly in doing that. They're good people and they like me and they're my friends, so they're going to give me my early release and let me get this done with quickly, right?
"That's how they made it seem. But when they sent me my early release, they changed the wording in my original contract. They changed the wording 'all terms matched' to 'material terms.' Because they know they cannot match all the terms of the UFC offer.
"So I sent the contract to my manager, Glen Robinson," he continued. "Glen and the attorneys right away told me, 'Wait a minute.' Viacom sent the contract for the release to my house. They sent it to my house, when they were supposed to go through my attorneys and my management. But they sent a different copy, a copy to my house, thinking that I would sign it and send it back.
"I informed my management that I got the contract at my house. And I'll show you guys. We have it. And this is the whole case, to be honest with you. This is what the whole case is about. It's about matching. And what they did when they realized that this is going to be very tough, that they weren't going to be able to match it. They only way they were going to be able to match it was if they gave me an early release and changed the wording on the contract, and I would sign it."
Alvarez did not sign that release, which would have meant Bellator only had to match the win and show money - along with the guaranteed signing bonus - to technically match the material terms. When Alvarez's team brought the contract back to Viacom they changed the term back; as Alvarez put it, "they got caught."
The case has started to become about a little more than Alvarez, and though he wholly admits he's fighting for himself and his family above all else, he believes he's taking a stand so other fighters don't have to deal with the shadiness that's gone on here.
"As this case goes on, I realize the importance of it," he said. "I realize that I'm not the only guy who has dealt with this, and I'm not the only guy who is going to deal with this. And maybe if one person goes through this enough and doesn't give in and doesn't yield to all the guys with the money, maybe if one person cares enough it will change the course of how we get paid. Even if it puts a little bit more power in the fighters' hands, then I did a good thing."
But he's got to win this case for any benefit, or he'll be forced to fight for a company he's lost respect for, under circumstances he feels are wrong. And ultimately, he's seeking the opportunity that the UFC can offer him, and one he feels that Viacom cannot.
"I want an opportunity to fight the best in the world and make millions of dollars doing it," he said. "What's my opportunity going back to Viacom? Where's my opportunity for any of that? Are there millions of dollars to be made? No. Can I become No. 1 in the world fighting there? No. Those are the questions that need answering. And if they're both no? Then what can I do?"
Penick's Analysis: There's much more in that interview, including some more shady business done against Alvarez's friend and fellow former-Bellator Champ Zach Makovsky by the organization, so I suggest checking it out in full. But onto Alvarez's issue itself, the fact that Viacom tried to change the wording in his contract suggests that they're not confident their concept of "matching" would hold up under the original verbiage, but they've pushed through anyway and have argued the "material terms" claim in public before. If Alvarez's contract doesn't say "material terms" need to be matched, and they have a copy of Viacom trying to change that prior to him negotiating with the UFC, he's got a much stronger leg to stand on when this hits trial than perhaps most believed. There is a major component here about the opportunity to make much, much more with the UFC, and the fact that it's in the contract to get him at least one fight on pay-per-view. Bellator and Viacom pushing as hard as they have against Alvarez isn't going to end well for them, because even if they win out, Alvarez being essentially "stuck" with them after all of this is going to make for a very poor reaction with the public.
[Eddie Alvarez photo (c) Henry Dziekan III]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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