eddie-alvarez-with-bellator-beltBellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez spoke with MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani in a interview on Friday and broke some news regarding his future in Bellator and who he’ll fight next. Alvarez indicated that his next fight will be against Michael Chandler for the third time, and that the fight will take place on PPV. Here’s a snippet from Alvarez:

“We weren’t able to do the first one on pay-per-view, and I definitely want to headline a pay-per-view card and we get an opportunity to do that. What better way to do that than have one of the best trilogies in MMA history.”

Chandler defeated Alvarez at Bellator 58 in 2011 to become the new Bellator lightweight champion. However, Alvarez was able to win the rematch at Bellator 106 in 2013 to recapture the Bellator lightweight crown.

It’s interesting because that was one of the questions I posed in this piece just a few days ago. Would Bellator offer an MMA PPV in 2014? Here’s what I wrote:

Bellator MMA was set to hold their first PPV in 2013 this past November, but the plans fell through when one half of the main event(Tito Ortiz) had to withdraw from the card. Was this PPV a result of the Eddie Alvarez lawsuit or was it in the plans the whole time? I don’t think it was the latter, and certainly don’t think that card would have done well at all for a number of reasons. If Bellator doesn’t hold a PPV in 2014, then we’ll know that PPV was probably heavily influenced by the Eddie Alvarez situation.

Alvarez indicates that the third fight with Chandler would be the main event of the PPV. That would be a much more attractive option than two well past their prime fighters in Rampage Jackson and Tito Ortiz, which was going to be the main event of the first planned PPV Bellator in 2013. The two fights between Alvarez and Chandler have been nothing short of fantastic, and most likely fans would be willing to pay for that PPV provided the rest of the card is put together nicely as well.

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