A world traveler and company man through and through, Sam Alvey is happy to finally be fighting close to home.
The light heavyweight has competed 17 times for the UFC since his promotional debut in August 2014. From Australia to Brazil to Canada to Poland, Alvey (33-12 MMA, 10-7 UFC) has competed around the world on seemingly any and every card the UFC has asked him to. Often, he played the role of “the bad guy” in his fights – the foreigner, who came in to take out a home-country competitor.
At UFC San Antonio, Alvey will finally get to fight in a cage relatively close to his adopted home state of California. For the first time in his pro career, the 33-year-old fighter will compete in the Lone Star state to take on promotional sophomore Klidson Abreu.
“It will be fun fighting the foreigner in America … I’m looking forward to fighting him,” Alvey said. “I’ve never fought in Texas. This is actually the closest to home I’ve ever fought. Home being California. Colorado was the old closest and MapQuest says this is the new closest. It’s like an hour and half or two-hour flight and I’m there. That’s going to be pretty nice.”
The Brazilian Abreu lost his short-notice UFC debut at UFC on ESPN+3 in February to surging Russian Magomed Ankalaev. In the bout, Abreu (14-3 MMA, 0-1 UFC) severely broke his nose but gutted out the remainder of the fight.
In a recent interview with MMA Junkie Radio, Alvey said he believes the matchup with Abreu has the makings of a bonus-worthy performance.
“I feel good, I do,” Alvey said. “He’s a tough guy. He’s got big hands, good jiu-jitsu, trains at a world class gym. It’ll be a fun fight. It’ll be an exciting fight. It’s got the potential to go anywhere. I know most fighters say, ‘Oh he’s strong, he’s this.’ It really is a fun matchup. Stylistically this could pretty easily be ‘Fight of the Night.’”
Since moving up to light heavyweight in early 2018, Alvey has split four appearances at 205 pounds. After he defeated Marcin Prachnio and Gian Villante, Alvey was finished via punches in his last two outings to Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and Jimmy Crute.
The loss to Crute was deemed controversial by many, including Alvey himself. Alvey took exception with referee Marc Goddard, who waived off the bout in the first round. The two had had issues in the past, and Alvey cited he would never allow Goddard to referee another one of his bouts going forward.
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