Philadelphia’s Eddie Alvarez will headline Knucklemania next year at the Farg:

Eddie left the UFC in 2018 and fought four times in Asian promotion ONE Championship. He had kind of a weird run over there. He lost his first fight, won his second fight, then had a DQ that was turned into a no contest. He lost his fourth fight and agreed to be released from his contact, then signed with Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship and is so far 1-1 against former UFC fighters Mike Perry and Chad Mendes.

We spoke with Alvarez a few years ago, right around that time that Justin Gaethje fought Edson Barboza at UFC Fight Night at the Wells Fargo Center. Eddie had just made the jump to ONE and was itchy to fight at home again:

Crossing Broad: Was it disappointing to see that they brought a UFC Fight Night here I think literally right after you left for ONE?

Alvarez: I texted Dana (White) immediately and said ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ And he goes, ‘oh well we wanted you,’ which was ironic. I vouched, I won the world title, begged when I had the title to fight in Philly, but no. And they hadn’t been in Philly for how long?

…

I pushed to get Philly fighters on there. I couldn’t, so I wanted to live vicariously through someone. I pushed Dana to get as many, I let him know who the best guys in Philly were, so we could get somebody to represent our city. But look, it was a bitter pill to swallow. I’m not gonna lie. It’s a bucket list item…

Wikipedia says Eddie last fought here way back in 2010, headlining a Bellator card at the Liacouras Center. He fought often in Atlantic City during the early part of his pro career, but Philadelphia just didn’t happen outside of that one event. So it’s good to see Eddie get his bucket list item checked off. This isn’t MMA, but Jeremy Stephens is a great striker and this will be a quality headlining event on January 25th.