Alvarez knocked out Pitbull the last time he entered the Bellator cage
Former Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez had the last fight of his contract with the organization in October 2012, when he knocked out the Brazilian Patricky Pitbull. Since then, the fighter had a verbal agreement to move to the UFC, but ran into a contractual clause that said Bellator would have renewal priority if it matched another proposal.
The athlete went to court to get rid of Bellator, but the dispute is not expected to be resolved before September 2014, when the pre-trial is scheduled. Aware of the danger of leaving him inactive for two years at the height of his career, Dana White thinks that the best thing would be for Alvarez to return to fight for the rival organization.
“He should fight for Bellator,” White told MMAjunkie. “First of all, they have the right – he signed a contract and they have all the rights to Alvarez. But at least pay the kid. You start to look around and see how much Eddie Alvarez is worth. Well, Eddie Alvarez found out how much he's worth and they (Bellator) refuse to pay for it. It's an absurd."
Dana refers to the sales potential of pay-per-view that the popular fighter could yield to the UFC. The director compared the rival organization's attitude to that of boxing promoters and assured that his company had never acted in the same way.
“So now this boy’s life and career will be in limbo while this legal battle is going on. That's a boxing thing, that's how boxing does it. Boxing tries to tie you down so you can't make money. We've never done this to anyone. Never,” he concluded
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