Bellator MMA granted its lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez an unconditional release from the promotion Tuesday and it didn’t take long for him to find a new home.
Alvarez, who had one fight remaining on his Bellator deal, was a free agent for mere hours before signing with the UFC.
UFC president Dana White announced Alvarez will fight Donald Cerrone in the co-main event of UFC 178, which takes place Sept. 27 in Las Vegas.
Alvarez (25-3) has long been considered one of the best 155-pound fighters in MMA with wins over Michael Chandler, Pat Curran, Roger Huerta, Shinya Aoki and Tatsuya Kawajiri among others.
“We sat down with Eddie and his team a few times, and it became pretty clear early on that he just wasn’t interested in fighting for Bellator in the future,” Bellator’s new president Scott Coker stated in a press release. “We want guys in this organization that want to be here, and after the history Eddie and the former regime had here at Bellator, we decided to move on.”
The Philadelphia native earned a controversial split decision victory over Chandler at Bellator 106 last November in his most recent fight. Alvarez has competed just once since October 2012 with much of his time out of the cage spent dealing with various injuries and a long, drawn-out contract dispute.
“This was a long process but it’s a decision that everyone seems happy with,” Alvarez stated. “I think it’s important to say that I am genuinely thankful for my time at Bellator. I know that sounds a little crazy given everything I went through, but I’ve fought there since 2009, and have been involved in some really amazing fights. The staff there always treated me great, and I’m going to miss seeing a lot of those familiar faces around for sure. Myself and my team had some really good discussions with Scott, but in my heart I knew I was ready to move on and start the next chapter in my career.”
Alvarez went 9-1 under the Bellator banner.
Cerrone (24-6, 1 NC) is riding a four-fight win streak with knockouts of Jim Miller and Adriano Martins and submission victories over Edson Barboza and Evan Dunham during that span. The 31-year-old Jackson-Winkeljohn product has been one of the most active fighters in the UFC lately, competing three times already in 2014 and six times in the last 15 months. Cerrone was slated to fight Bobby Green at UFC 178, but Green has been removed from the card and his next opponent is unknown.
UFC 178 was scheduled originally to be headlined by the anticipated Jon Jones vs Daniel Cormier light-heavyweight title fight, but that bout was removed from the card when Jones suffered a knee injury in training that required surgery.
A flyweight title fight between Demetirous Johnson and Chris Cariaso was shifted from the UFC 177 co-main event to serve as the new UFC 178 headliner.
Here is the current UFC 178 lineup:
— Demetrious Johnson vs Chris Cariaso
— Donald Cerrone vs Eddie Alvarez
— Dustin Poirier vs Conor McGregor
— Dominick Cruz vs Takeya Mizugaki
— Cat Zingano vs Amanda Nunes
— Tim Kennedy vs Yoel Romero
— Patrick Cote vs Stephen Thompson
— Jorge Masvidal vs James Krause
— Manvel Gamburyan vs Cody Gibson
— John Howard vs Brian Ebersole
— Jon Tuck vs Kevin Lee
