Eddie Alvarez on UFC on FOX 29: Dustin Poirier more skilled, but Justin Gaethje has different edge

On Dec. 2, Eddie Alvarez beat Justin Gaethje in a UFC 218 barnburner that left both lightweights so battered neither could attend the post-fight news conference.

It was the type of battle that, one would think, the average person might need a little time to recover from. Yet the following month, Gaethje (18-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) provided further evidence he’s no average person when a UFC on FOX 29 meeting with fellow contender Dustin Poirier (22-5 MMA, 14-4 UFC) was announced.

Alvarez (29-5 MMA, 4-2 UFC) remains unbooked. And having felt the effects of that war, was the UFC’s ex-lightweight-champ surprised Gaethje was so quick to come back from it?

“I’m not shocked at anything Justin Gaethje does,” Alvarez told MMAjunkie Radio.

The unexpected, it seems, is something that the UFC’s former 155-pound champ learned to expect from the ex-WSOF-titleholder in the weeks the two spent taping the 26th season of “The Ultimate Fighter.”

“I actually went into that fight expecting complete chaos and exactly what it was,” Alvarez said. “I spent some time with him on ‘TUF’ show. I got a good gauge on what type of person he is and how he likes to live his life and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him.”

And what “type of person” that is, you ask? Allow Alvarez to give you an example. On episode 8, we got to watch as Alvarez and Gaethje squared off in the season’s coaches’ challenge, which involved swimming 16 lengths on an Olympic-sized pool.

Alvarez beat Gaethje handily, which meant an added $10,000 for himself and $1,500 for each member of his team. What we didn’t get to see, though, was just how tough that was for Gaethje – who Alvarez concluded had “never swam a day in his life.”

“I cross-train swimming, I enjoy swimming, so I know what it’s like to not be able to swim and try to get in a pool and swim laps,” Alvarez said. “He damn near drowned during this event on the ‘TUF’ show. You didn’t get to see the whole thing, but he almost drowned in the pool.

“But he finished the half a mile of swimming. Never being a swimmer, ever, in his life. Which I was like, ‘Holy (expletive), I would never.’ I think the first time I went in the pool, I did a lap and I passed out.”

Not only did Gaethje finish, Alvarez recalled, he made sure to send Alvarez a message as he paid off the bet.

“I said to him that, ‘You swim like you fight,'” Alvarez said. “Like, he’s 100 miles an hour, he has no pace. And he said, ‘Well, I didn’t learn a thing,’ like, ‘The swimming did nothing. I’m still going to fight exactly the same way I fight.’ That’s the kind of guy he is, that’s the kind of way he lives and I respect that.”

Alvarez, of course also has some unique insight when it comes to the meeting between Gaethje and Poirier. After all, before the TKO win over Gaethje, Poirier was the one Alvarez shared an octagon with. The fight was off to a promising start, but ended up being stopped in the second-round and was eventually ruled a no-contest.

Amid Poirier’s calls for a rematch, Alvarez immediately accused him of “wanting out” after taking the illegal knees that caused the UFC 211 fight to be stopped. Several months later, Alvarez stands by the claims that he saw quit in Poirier – but not in Gaethje.

“I think it’s no question that Dustin Poirier is a more skilled fighter than Justin Gaethje,” Alvarez said. “That’s safe to say. I think everybody in this room would agree with that, skill-wise. But Justin has the intangibles. And, at no time in the ring, when I was beating Justin, no matter how hard I was hitting him, did I feel like he was accepting defeat. Not at any point.

“And I can’t say the same for the Dustin fight. I feel like there was a point at that fight when I felt that he accepted defeat and he wanted to be out of the fight. Justin didn’t. And I beat Justin worse. So I have to give the edge to Justin in that respect, because I don’t feel like Dustin Poirier is going to be able to finish him. He’s going to have to fight him for the whole fight.”

To hear from Alvarez, check out the video above.

And for more on UFC on FOX 29, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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