At times, Eddie Alvarez stammered and seemed to have trouble finding words as he recounted the injury that forced him to withdraw from a rubber match with Michael Chandler at Bellator MMA’s pay-per-view debut this Saturday in Mississippi.
The Bellator lightweight champion is recovering from a concussion suffered in training for the bout and faces an uncertain path back to the cage, though he is optimistic he will heal more quickly than others.
“Since we called the fight off, I’ve been able to fully rest my head without having to go into the gym,” Alvarez, 30, today told MMAjunkie.
For now, improvement is a day-by-day process as the effects of the head injury lessen. Alvarez was well into his camp when he got hurt, but continued to train in hopes of being able to fight. This past week, when it became apparent his symptoms weren’t subsiding, the decision was made to call off the bout, which is now set as an interim title fight between Chandler and short-notice replacement Will Brooks.
“When the injury first happened, I was having trouble just with my daily, regular day,” he said. “Shaking my head ‘no’ really hurt, really put pressure on my head. When I tried to look side to side, it was really putting pressure on my head. Raising my voice too loud really hurt, so I couldn’t really yell, and I have three kids – I have to yell a lot.
“I’m improving every day. When I go to shake my head a little bit, the pressure is a little bit less than when it was when it first happened, so (I’m) just giving my brain time to heal.”
Alvarez (25-3 MMA, 9-1 BMMA), who trains with the famed Blackzilians MMA camp in South Florida, said he’s been knocked out and suffered concussion symptoms before, but this injury is more severe than any other he’s previously experienced.
Alvarez revealed that it wasn’t a single shot to the head that resulted in a concussion, but rather a series of bumps to the head that led to the diagnosis.
“I got a ‘stinger’ the week before, and then after the stinger, at a wrestling practice, I shot on my wrestling partner’s hip, and he sort of met me with his hip,” Alvarez said. “I remember that being a significant blow, but I still continued practice. And then right after that, I got hit with a heel when I went for a single-leg (takedown). So it was like two hard shots back-to-back in one wrestling round.
“I just kept going, because I get hit a lot and I feel a lot of hard shots, but it wasn’t a big deal. But I guess one got me good enough to where it did a little bit of damage that I really wasn’t expecting.”
A “stinger” pinches a nerve along the spine and is common to wrestlers who frequently run their heads into the mat while driving for takedowns. It causes a shooting pain and numbness that travels down one arm.
Alvarez said he wasn’t concerned when he experienced the stinger, as he had suffered them before while playing football. He couldn’t be sure whether the injury was related to the concussion, but clearly, the impacts he experienced during the wrestling practice were significant. He said his training partner’s hip was still bruised 10 days after the initial hit.
“I was doing five five-minute rounds,” he said. “I was basically ready to fight. I was at the point where I was very close to peaking, and I only had a couple more weeks to keep rehearsing. My conditioning coach was very happy with where I was at.
“Preparing for a fight, I actually fight every week. So normally, on a Wednesday and a Friday, I do a test run. I call them ‘test runs,' where I bring in five or three different training partners, and I do five, five-minute rounds just like I would in a fight.”
Alvarez said he didn’t immediately go to a doctor when he experienced the serious injury on a Wednesday two weeks out from the fight, but he called his manager to ask if a doctor could check him out as his symptoms worsened and he became unable to train. That was when Bellator first was notified of the injury, he added.
After visiting with a local neurologist, he said he was referred to Dr. Joseph Maroon, a a concussion expert who’s served as the team neurologist for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“I flew to Pittsburgh probably a day after I told my management,” Alvarez said. “I did a series of tests at the clinic. I worked with a vestibular specialist. I did an exertion test, and then I was seen by Dr. [Michael] Collins at the [University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for Sports Medicine], which is one of the best concussion clinics in the country. I was seen by four people, and they were hopeful that I’d be able to get to the fight date when I did my testing. But they also reiterated that the brain heals on its own. There’s nothing we can do to speed it up.”
The word on the injury, Alvarez said, was in part that his vestibular system was “out of whack” and was causing pain when he tried to use his peripheral vision. As soon as the diagnosis was official, he said Robinson informed Bellator.
Alvarez said he tried to speed the healing process with a hyperbaric chamber and took fish oil and other supplements. But the symptoms still persisted.
“Basically, I did cardio and I felt really good during my strength and conditioning sessions,” he said. “The doctor said when I’m able to do those pain-free, then I can move on to doing pads and mitt work. I never really got past the cardio pain-free. It still would bug me when I was slamming medicine balls or doing anything that involved punching. But when I went on to doing pad work, it was almost impossible to get past the punching when I punched. The impact of me punching pads would cause a lot of pressure in my head. I couldn’t even think about taking a punch from someone.”
Despite the serious symptoms, Alvarez said he was never scared about the extent of his injuries but more that he wouldn’t be able to fight. Eventually, though, he said his wife helped him see that withdrawing from the event was the right thing to do.
“I have six or seven really good years ahead of me in this game,” he said. “I don’t want to rush one fight and risk not being able to be spectacular in the next six or seven years.”
The less-than-amiable circumstances surrounding the rubber match and his relationship with Bellator did not factor into his decision, he said. Although word of Alvarez’s injury brought speculation that its timing was somehow aimed at sinking the Viacom-owned promotion’s second pay-per-view effort, he said “the sport has always been about the fighter.”
“Who I fight for is just a company,” Alvarez added. “I think people put too much weight into that. Bellator has been supportive throughout the entire thing. But this is my career, and my fight, and what I’m doing. The decision doesn’t have much to do with Bellator at all.”
With that said, Alvarez wasn’t thrilled to hear the promotion’s plans to stage an interim title fight between Chandler (12-1 MMA, 9-1 BMMA) and Brooks (13-1 MMA, 5-1 BMMA) at Bellator 120, which takes place at Landers Center in Southhaven, Miss. The event’s main card airs live on pay-per-view following prelims on Spike TV and Spike.com.
“Not entirely excited that it’s an interim title, but business is business, and they’ve got to do what they’ve got to do,” he said. “Whatever. Good luck to both of them guys. I’ll be pulling for Michael Chandler to win.
“I’ve never seen a champion not be able to fight one fight, and then they put on an interim title. That’s got to be the first time I’ve ever seen that. A fight’s a fight. I don’t get why we have to put a belt in there. I think we should get rid of the belts altogether, to be honest with you. But a fight’s a fight. For money, for a belt, whatever you’ve got to do.”
As for where Alvarez stands with Bellator in terms of his contract, he said nothing has changed. While the promotion undoubtedly has exercised an injury clause to prevent the injury from allowing him to not fulfill his contract, he remains focused on fighting Chandler in the future.
“We’re going to move on,” Alvarez said. “I’m going to get better, and we’re going to make this trilogy happen. More than anything, I want to apologize to the fans. It’s unfortunate. It’s the sh–tiest part of the game.
“I feel like if I had to apologize to anyone, it would be Mike. This sucks. Nobody wanted to fight this fight more than me. It’s really out of my hands, and I wish him luck. He stepped up, and he’s fighting Will on short notice. I’ll be pulling for him.”
Alvarez said he’ll be watching the pay-per-view and anticipates a follow-up meeting within a week with his local neurologist. He hopes to be cleared for moderate training.
When he’s fully healed, however, he won’t hold back in the gym.
“What do you say? I’m not going to fix something that’s not broken,” he said. “I win quite often, and I train a certain way. It works for me. So I won’t be going any less hard than what I do. At the Blackzilians, we go very hard. Our pace is high, and it’s very real, the fights that go on within our gym. I don’t want that to change. I feel like that’s a huge part of our success. If I could change anything, I feel like some protocols may be put in place like they have in the NFL and every other sport. But I don’t even know if that’s doable, considering this is an individual sport. I don’t feel like I did anything I could have avoided, that I was being negligent. I just think it was unfortunate what happened, and it could happen to anyone.”
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Statistics: Posted by mmacanada — May 13. 2014, 06:08 — Replies 0 — Views 23
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