MMA Preview – Eddie Alvarez vs Justin Gaethje at UFC 218
Date: Saturday 2nd December
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Venue: Little Caesars Arena
A mouth-watering match-up in the lightweight division. These two were born to fight; true sluggers who share an unhealthy habit of engaging in wars and exchanging damage. After coaching The Ultimate Fighter 26, Eddie Alvarez and Justin Gaethje will duke it out at UFC 218 and rejiggle the queue of contenders for Conor McGregor’s lightweight championship.
Alvarez, who lost his belt to McGregor, is not just interested in putting on shows for the fans, he is desperate to reclaim his belt but has stuttered in his journey back after a no-contest in his last fight against Dustin Poirier. For his return, he has been matched up with Gaethje to set off fireworks but Alvarez will certainly go into this fight with a game plan.
So he should, as even though Gaethje has a reputation of being a reckless fighter, astoundingly he is unbeaten with 18 wins which is extremely rare at this level of the game. Making his name in the World Series of Fighting promotion, he starched contender after contender, defending his belt five times before moving to the UFC.
So can we expect to see a brawl in Detroit? With a combined 30 knockouts in their 46 wins, the writing may be on the wall but they are both very strong grapplers with accomplished backgrounds in wrestling which may be utilised in their game plans. Shots will be thrown and they will land which is why their ‘significant strikes landed per minute’ is highlighted as the key stat.
Striking and grappling stats sourced via FightMetric.
