As soon as Eddie Alvarez set foot on the beachside ring in Costa Rica, one thing became abundantly clear to him — there was no chance he was taking his fight to the ground.
It was 2007, and Alvarez was making his second appearance in the now-defunct Bodog Fights. He’d fought in some strange places before – he was “The Underground King,” after all. But this was something entirely different.
“Just going in the ring with your feet, it felt like you were in hot sand,” Alvarez told MMA Fighting. “The ring was crazy hot.