Last week, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced that Lightweight Champion and Kensington-native Eddie Alvarez (28-4) will defend his belt at UFC 205 against Irish megastar “Notorious” Conor McGregor (20-3) in Madison Square Garden on Saturday November 12 at 10PM. A battle of champions, the historic superfight will be the first title defense for Alvarez and pits him against the reigning featherweight champion McGregor. It will be the first UFC card in New York City since the sport of Mixed Martial Arts became legal in the state of New York earlier this year. This highly anticipated announcement ended months of speculation and the event will likely be the largest and highest grossing in UFC history.

  As Alvarez told Ariel Niall McGrath of SevereMMA.com, the Morrell Park resident thinks McGregor is foolish for taking this fight.

  “I’ll do whatever I want, in any aspect, against him,” he said. “The opponents he has fought have allowed him to look great. That’s the issue, that’s what these WWF fans who follow him don’t see. They see a guy who’s fighting or playing to his strengths.”

  Alvarez also took Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com on a walking tour of K&A and explained his game plan.

“I am the champion, I have the title,” he said. “This guy wants the title, he can come get it. Past the eight minute mark, I don’t see anything but being dominant. He can do well because it’s easy to be technical in the first round or two, but when the shit hits the fan and it turns into a fight, I will dominate this guy every step of the way. When he’s a little bit tired and he has to dig down, it’s all over. I can’t wait; it’s going to be a great time for me.”

  Throughout literary history, all great heroic sagas have certain elements in common: a humble origin, a journey to distant lands to battle formidable and cartoonish foes, the triumphant return home and a romance that produces many sons. Eddie Alvarez’s story checks all of these boxes and no one narrates this epic better than Bill Hunter.

  “I know Eddie better than almost anyone,” brags Hunter, Eddie’s wrestling coach at North Catholic High School and a veteran Philadelphia police officer. “His work ethic has always been there. He’s always a leader and not afraid of hard work, since he was young. It’s a cliché, but he really has the heart of Rocky Balboa.”

  Hunter, as he is simply known on the streets, first came to international prominence by introducing British filmmaker Louis Theroux to Philly’s intersection of Kensington and Allegheny Avenues for Theroux’s 2008 BBC documentary Law and Disorder in Philadelphia. (He appears at 02:07.)

  The comparisons of Eddie Alvarez to the fictional Italian Stallion are inevitable. The 19134 zip code that produced Rocky has more old-school boxing gyms per capita than just about anywhere in the country. These gyms don’t offer CrossFit and hot yoga, but they will teach you how to double-up a jab and finish with a straight right and an upper cut – all good skills to have growing up around K&A. It was in one of these gyms above a beer distributor, the Front Street Gym, where legendary Kenzo trainer Frank Kubach and Eddie’s father, Louis Alvarez, first taught the 8-year-old future champ the fundamentals of the sweet science. Eddie’s grandfather, Alberto, had been an elite amateur boxer back in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and fast hands ran in the family.

  “I met Eddie when he was this 11-year-old kid with a heart of gold and, excuse the expression, balls of steel,” said Hunter. “I still see him that way. I found him on the 800 block of East Madison Street. He was the funniest and most vibrant little kid out there.”

  Hunter convinced the 11-year-kid with the balls of steel to take up wrestling at the nearby Rizzo PAL on a team Hunter co-founded called the Junior Falcons.

  “Once I got him to join, the rest was easy. He was so good at it. I just had to make appearances on the block to let the drug dealers know he was off-limits. It was definitely worth the effort.”

  The rest is Philadelphia Catholic League history. When Alvarez graduated from North in 2001, he was a varsity letterman in football, wrestling and track.

  In football, he excelled at running back and a position normally reserved for crazy people – kick returner — but it was wrestling where he really shined. His record over four years was 120 wins with only a handful of losses (his younger brother Albert went on to notch 129 wins at North.) Alvarez was three times named All-Catholic, twice individual Catholic League Champion, and three-time team member of championship squads in a league that had previously been dominated by suburban powerhouses Archbishop Wood and Bishop Egan. He was a two-time National Prep All-American wrestler and placed 6th at the 2000 and 2001 National Prep School Wrestling Championships.

  But shortly after graduation, Alvarez’s parents moved to Florida, leaving Eddie and his siblings to fend for themselves in Kensington. Although he was offered several athletic scholarships, none were full rides. Alvarez humbly decided to forgo college and to support himself pouring concrete and fighting professionally. It wasn’t long before he and his high school sweetheart Jamie LeAnn were married and had kids of their own.

  With no amateur fights, Alvarez went straight pro. His first fight came after only 8 months of training, in Edison, New Jersey against Anthony Ladonna (coached by former UFC champ Matt Serra.) Alvarez knocked Ladonna out in the first round. It would be the first of many knockouts over the next decade for the “Silent Assassin.”

  Alvarez paid the promoter $250 for the opportunity to fight “professionally,” but he knew right away where the real money was. He quickly became adept at selling tee shirts and organizing bus trips.

  “We sold tickets the way other people sold drugs,” he told MMA Noise’s Mike Strata. “We set up a lockbox with tickets in each neighborhood, at the biggest businesses. We’d then tell people to go there to pick up the tickets. We’d give the business owner his cut and pick up the money at the end of the week. That was our system, that’s how we got it done. Hopefully we can fight locally again and we’ll use the same system. We’ll still go grassroots. I like it that way.”

  At his final local fight at Temple University’s Liacouras Center against Roger Huerta, Eddie and his crew sold over 1000 tickets at $25+ each, and sold an additional 800 shirts for $25. The “Underground King” quickly blasted his way through every promotion he joined, becoming champion at BoDog, DREAM, and Bellator. He fought in Canada, Costa Rica, Russia, Japan, Mexico and across the United States. A contract dispute with Bellator delayed his joining the world’s largest and most prestigious promotion. Finally, after a long and costly court battle, Eddie joined the UFC in 2014. Two years later, he shocked the word (but no one in Philly) with an impressive first round TKO of the reigning lightweight champ Raphael dos Anjos in Las Vegas. Alvarez brought a championship back to Philadelphia.

  “Where is Conor McGregor now?” shouted Bergen County comedian Joey Diaz after the fight. “This kid is Philadelphia. Nothing but heart… this was the fight of the year.”

  “He looked spectacular,” said UFC announcer Joe Rogan. “Eddie Alvarez is the kind of guy who rises to the occasion… he’s a good dude, a great guy, and great for the sport. Good for him.”

  On his podcast, Rogan added “Eddie is a big boy. He can grapple, he’s a grinder. And whatever endurance issues Conor may have, he better iron those out.”

  It was at one of the early promotions where Alvarez met fellow MMA warrior and kindred spirit Frankie Edgar, who introduced Alvarez to his striking coach Mark Henry. Edgar and Alvarez now train together with Coach Henry and UFC veteran/Gracie Jiu-jitsu black-belt Ricardo Almeida in New Jersey.

  “Eddie is an awesome guy besides a fighter,” Coach Henry tells me after a sparring session. “He’s a great dad, husband, friend, teammate, and student. There is no better. The great thing about Eddie is he is the same person from when he was champion in Japan, to Bellator, to the UFC. His head is on straight and he hasn’t changed. He’s been a champion everywhere and he’s a Philly kid so being tough and a champion is in his DNA.”

  The team is confident Alvarez will prevail at UFC 205. If Alvarez wins, McGregor will likely demand a rematch and the sequel could occur in Philly. As if the Rocky comparisons weren’t already enough, the next opponent in line is the undefeated Russian, Khabib “The Eagle” Nurmagomenov. It’s something out of Central Casting. And the payout? Alvarez’s overall take for the bout against McGregor could easily be in the millions. Not bad for a kid from G & Westmoreland.

  Alvarez has even called the opportunity to fight McGregor “a gimme fight,” insinuating an easy victory and that the bombastic Irishman has been given a relatively easy path in the UFC because of marketability and “Build-A-Bear suits,” regarding the exectives running the show. He derisively called McGregor “not a championship fighter,” implying that his opponent is not a complete MMA fighter.

  “I’m talking about how he deals with adversity. He deals terribly with being in bad situations.” Alvarez later questioned why Conor had two jiu-jitsu coaches, but got no direct response.

  McGregor has called Alvarez “a novice,” and just “a wrestler with an overhand right.” He also couldn’t help but get in a dig about Philadelphia.

  “I could buy and sell your whole bum town!” McGregor said at the press conference.

  After decades of relegation as only a minor spectator sport, MMA has finally cracked the national sports media, with Fox Sports commentator Colin Cowherd calling the recent Diaz/McGregor 2 fight as “a nail in the coffin of boxing,” the Los Angeles Times declared “boxing is dead,” and Vice called MMA “The Future of Fighting in Philadelphia.” That’s saying something given the rich boxing history in this town, Balboa aside.

  On September 11, 2016, the Philadelphia Firefighter and Paramedics Union Local 22 awarded Alvarez its first-ever honorary membership along with a Golden Brick, signifying the traits of toughness and perseverance. Firefighter Mike Bresnan praised Eddie’s volunteer work and his commitment to underprivileged children in the community.

  “He has been an inspiration and a role model for kids in his pursuit of his dreams,” Bresnan said. “Eddie’s message is ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that you dreams are unattainable.’”

  In his acceptance speech, Alvarez thanked the firefighters and paramedics, calling them “real heroes, whose courage is truly inspiring.”

  Later that same week, Councilwoman Maria D. Quiñones-Sánchez honored Eddie’s hard work and community service with a citation from the city.

  “I love when kids from the neighborhood grow up and bring home championships!” said Quiñones-Sánchez. “We are so happy to have this opportunity to celebrate with Eddie and recognize his fantastic career and this great achievement.”

  Win, lose or draw in November, Hunter sums it up best:

  “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it until the day I die. I am so extremely proud of everything he has accomplished – he has been a winner in wrestling, track, football, at all the MMA promotions. But I’m more proud of the gentlemen that he has always been, and the good husband and the good father that he has become. I’m not big into predictions, but I guarantee he will give 100 percent. That’s all he knows.”

  It’s Eddie Alvarez versus Conor McGregor at UFC 205 on Saturday, November 12. Check your local listings or UFC.com. 

  Follow the champ on Twitter and Instagram.

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