According to Bellator Fighting Championships lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez (21-2 MMA, 5-0 BFC), the glass slipper will soon be broken.Season-two tourney Cinderella story Pat Curran (13-3 MMA, 3-0 BFC) shocked the world with upset wins over Roger Huerta and Toby Imada, but Alvarez has no plans of joining that list.
"I want to dominate Pat Curran," Alvarez said. "I won't be happy with anything less than complete and total domination."
Alvarez and Curran meet in the featured matchup of Saturday night's MTV2-broadcast Bellator 39 event, which takes place at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn.
Curran entered the season-two tournament as a lightly regarded prospect. Most MMA pundits felt the eight-man bracket was little more than a showcase for UFC castoff Huerta, but Curran had different ideas. After scoring a highlight-reel knockout of Mike Ricci, Curran went on to upset Huerta and perennial contender Imada.
Alvarez admits the run was impressive and said the victories likely served to bolster his opponent's confidence.
"Pat Curran is young, he's hungry, and he has a lot of momentum coming into this fight – especially considering that he's been the underdog in every fight he's had with Bellator, and he's overcome the odds every single time," Alvarez said. "So I'm sure he's very confident and he's feeling pretty good about being the underdog again. I'm sure he feels like he can overcome the odds."
And the odds are significant. Alvarez is considered as much as a six-to-one favorite by most oddsmakers, making the fight a virtual no-lose situation for Curran. Win and you're a hero. Lose and it was expected.
Nevertheless, Alvarez insists there is no added pressure on him to deliver against a supposedly overmatched foe.
"The only pressure I have is the pressure I put on myself to fight how I know I can fight," Alvarez said. "I need to live up to my own expectations. More than any fight in my career, in this fight with Pat Curran I just want to completely dominate. It has nothing to do with Pat; it's just what I feel like I have to do regardless of who I'm fighting, in order to earn my rank of number one in the world."
While Curran has a handful of submission victories on his career record, he's promised to stand and bang with the champ. Alvarez, who has shown a tendency to get tagged in fights but inevitably survive the trouble, isn't buying the boast.
"If I had a quarter for every time someone said they were going to stand with me and knock me out, I wouldn't have to fight for a living," Alvarez said with a laugh. "I have 12 knockouts on my professional record right now, and all of those guys said the same thing Pat Curran is saying right now.
"He may be saying he wants to stand in front of me, but that would be a stupid, stupid gameplan. I highly doubt he's going to be standing in front of me for long, let me put it that way."
For Alvarez, who's won 11 of his past 12 and stands as the world's best lightweight not fighting under the Zuffa banner, Saturday's fight marks another opportunity to prove his talents are real. For Curran, it's the opportunity of a lifetime.
Never one to shy away from a firefight, Alvarez said he hopes his opponent doesn't freeze in the spotlight.
"The fact that Pat has been dreaming about this fight with me night after night just makes him that much more dangerous," Alvarez said. "When a person is that fearful, you know they're going to prepare. They're going to prepare themselves properly. It's just a matter of not letting that fear freeze him when he goes in there.
"Hopefully he can let go of that fear when he gets in the cage, and fight me."
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