Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Eddie Alvarez was slated to fight Michael Chandler at Bellator 120 in what would have been their third fight in their “trilogy” before he suffered a concussion and was forced to pull out. In somewhat of a cindarella story, the late replacement, Will Brooks, pulled off the upset victory and is now the Bellator Interim Lightweight Champion. This leaves Bellator in a bit of a lurch considering that they wrote into Eddie Alvarez’s contract that he had to fight Michael Chandler again.
According to Alvarez, he wants Will Brooks and that it was Bellator who made the initial clause. [source]
I want to be clear on this, whatever was written into my contract, was written by Bellator. I made no changes at all to the contract. If it says that I have to fight Mike Chandler again, that’s because Bellator wants it that way.
I think it’s only fair and right, just in the way things should go in a promotion, for me to fight Will Brooks. To me, that’s the right way to go. I don’t want to be a part of this whole debacle. It’s very messy, and it just doesn’t feel right that a guy has an interim belt, yet I’m supposed to fight another guy coming off a loss to the guy with the interim belt.