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The Takedown | Eddie Alvarez’s ONE Championship curse continues, but count him out at your peril
- Former UFC champion suffers second defeat in four fights – with one no contest – since high-profile move to Asian promotion
- ONE boss Chatri thinks featherweight switch is a non-starter, but lightweight title hopes look further away than ever
Reading Time:3 minutes
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To say Eddie Alvarez’s ONE Championship stint hasn’t gone to plan would be an understatement.
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The former UFC and Bellator lightweight champ jumped ship to the Asian promotion in late 2018 looking to complete an unprecedented hat-trick of world titles.
Thursday morning’s ONE on TNT 4 co-main event against No 5-ranked Ok Rae-yoon was supposed to be a chance for Alvarez to kick-start his ONE career, with the opportunity to earn a title shot against Christian Lee with a big finish.
That dream match-up looks farther away than ever now, after South Korea’s Ok (15-3) flipped the script in Singapore. Ok dropped the 37-year-old American legend in the first round and almost got him out of there, before using his height and range – and stuffing most of Alvarez’s takedowns – to secure a deserved unanimous decision.
So four fights into his stint with ONE, Alvarez has just one win to his name – and would have three defeats were it not for a controversial disqualification loss to Iuri Lapicus being overturned to a no contest this week.
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