One Championship: Eddie Alvarez coming to ‘take another skull’ from Eduard Folayang
- ‘I’m going into the Philippines and I’m gonna take him out in front of his own crowd,’ says the former UFC star
- ‘I like to feel my back’s against the wall. I do really well there. I don’t like to feel respected’
There was plenty of surprise that Eddie Alvarez accepted such a tough fight against Eduard Folayang on the back of his crushing One Championship debut loss.
“Look, I got the first one out of the way,” was the former UFC star’s blunt assessment of a first-round TKO by Timofey Nastyukhin in Tokyo at the end of March. And now he goes into the lion’s den to face “Landslide” in the Filipino fighter’s backyard of Manila on August 2
“I never want an easy fight,” the 35-year-old Alvarez said on BJPenn.com Radio. “The majority of guys will say, ‘I just lost, let me work my way back up’. I’ve been in this game so long, my only one desire is for the One Championship title. And this guy’s held it not once, but twice already. He’s their guy and I’m going to his home turf. I’m going to the Philippines and I’m gonna take him out in front of his home crowd.”
“This is going to be the ultimate one, the ‘Thrilla in Manila’,” Alvarez added. “Fighting the Filipino king in Eduard Folayang and taking another head, taking another skull.”
Folayang, who lost his lightweight title at Sumo Hall on the same Tokyo card, trains out of Team Lakay in Baguio City, up in the mountains of the Philippines.
