It came down to the wire.
24 hours prior to the UFC 205 pre-sale press conference, the landmark New York card lacked a heavy-hitting main event.
At the last minute, the promotion pulled out all the stops and announced a monster headliner for the card with the news that UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor was set to move up to 155lbs to take on champion Eddie Alvarez.
In the days leading up to the announcement, nobody knew what to expect as news of fight contracts being sent to the likes of Khabib Nurmagomedov emerged.
But a deal was struck and lightweight champ Alvarez has explained how it all played out from his side.
“I don’t know if there was a little bit of gamesmanship on the UFC’s part. They were sending some bout agreements to other fighters and things like that,” Alvarez said on the MMA Hour. “I don’t know what was going on. It seemed like a whirlwind.
“I believe it was Monday when I was on my way to (head coach) Mark Henry’s house, I got a text at 3 o’clock in the morning from Dana saying to give him a call and I knew the press conference was on the following day so I had an idea that this might be the call.
“So I got on the phone with him and I said ‘what’s up, man?’ and he started to talk to me about the same stuff that was going on in the news about the Khabib things and Jose Aldo.
“I think I just stopped him in his tracks and said ‘nobody wants these fights… let’s stop all this. I’m coming to New York and let’s make this fight happen.’
“Dana took the meeting, my managers came in and we got the deal done that night.”
Alvarez had been lobbying for a fight with ‘The Notorious’ for some time, wasting no time in calling McGregor out after he claimed the lightweight strap by knocking out Rafael dos Anjos in July.
And the Philadelphia fighter conceded that he was worried the deal wouldn’t get over the line given how long the negotiation process took.
“I was nervous,” Alvarez said. “My management didn’t seem to be. My management seemed to be very reserved. They dealt with it very well. I was actually shocked to see how well they dealt with it.
“They kind of called it and they knew what they were doing and the deal got done.
“I was going back and forth in my own head but at the end of the day, as long as I woke up every morning and got ready to fight, it didn’t really matter what happened.”
There are less than six weeks to go until UFC 205, arguably the greatest card in mixed martial arts history, but Alvarez revealed that his training camp began long before ink met paper on any bout agreement with McGregor.
“I was preparing. It didn’t have to be necessarily for Conor,” he added.
“I was just preparing. I think maybe six weeks ago, I got back in the gym, back with my strength and conditioning coaches.
“We probably started sparring weeks ago as well so when this was announced, I was already in a camp, already preparing and getting ready to be conditioned to fight at MSG.”
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