Alvarez: Feels like my brain was sort of bruised

Eddie Alvarez appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, and discussed the concussion that knocked him out of the trilogy fight with Michael Chandler that was to have been the main event of Saturday’s PPV.

Since we called the fight off, I’ve been able to fully rest my head without having to go into the gym, said Alvarez.

The accident happened while training with his Blackzilian team in Florida.

“It was during one of Kenny Monday’s wrestling practices,” said Alvarez as transcribed by Chuck Mindenhall for MMAFighting. “Me and Abel Trujillo were wrestling. I shot in, he defended like with a hip check, sort of hit me, and I just remember feeling like it was a significant blow. Well, we just kept wrestling and kept going, and there was a couple of exchanges later, I had a separate partner. I had a single-leg, and they pulled out of the single-leg and their heel hit me underneath my chin, and that was only about two or three minutes later after I shot on Abel. So, it was a series of significant hits that I took.”

“Kenny Monday’s wrestling practice is pretty intense. You normally feel exhausted and dizzy after regardless, so I didn’t know whether just to take it that I was feeling the symptoms because I took a hard shot or I was just tired and exhausted from practice.

“So, I went home, I rested, and when I came in the next day my head was feeling pressure when I got like really light impact. And then the following day, Friday, it got even worse. So I needed to call Glenn and let him know what was going on. That’s sort of what happened.”

“I’ve been hit harder. I got knocked out before the last Chandler fight, probably five weeks before the fight I got knocked out. All I did was rest. I kind of took off live training for like two weeks and then I went right back into it and fought Mike. So, concussions and getting hit hard is not something that’s new to me. These particular symptoms were all new to me, I had never felt these before, so I got a little afraid of what was going on.”

“When I get into the training room, any kind of impact training, even when I shadow box – if I throw my own punches, just the stopping and the jolting motion – it really puts pressure on my brain. Really, if I can describe it, it feels like my brain was like sort of bruised. It feels like a squeezing of my brain. My doctor says it was vestibular system that was sort of out of whack, which is the system that controls my head and my eye movement.

“So whenever I would try to do this motion, or if something happened really fast to my left or right side and I’d try to look, I would get a super, really like excruciating pain in my brain. So, I was probably foolish for thinking I could fight. But I was already too invested in my training camp to just say no. It was stupid to me to think about when I look back in retrospect, but I was very invested in the fight and I felt like I was going to be able to get past it.”

After visiting with a local neurologist, Alvarez was referred to Dr. Joseph Maroon, a world-renowned concussion expert.

I flew to Pittsburgh probably a day after I told my management,” said Alvarez, as transcribed by Steven Marrocco for MMAJunkie. “I did a series of tests at the clinic. I worked with a vestibular specialist. I did an exertion test, and then I was seen by Dr. Collins… I was seen by four people, and they were hopeful that I’d be able to get to the fight date when I did my testing. But they also reiterated that the brain heals on its own. There’s nothing we can do to speed it up.

When the injury first happened, I was having trouble just with my daily, regular day. Shaking my head ‘no’ really hurt, really put pressure on my head. When I tried to look side to side, it was really putting pressure on my head. Raising my voice too loud really hurt, so I couldn’t really yell, and I have three kids – I have to yell a lot.

I’m improving every day. When I go to shake my head a little bit, the pressure is a little bit less than when it was when it first happened, so just giving my brain time to heal.

I’m going to get better, and we’re going to make this trilogy happen. More than anything, I want to apologize to the fans. It’s unfortunate. It’s the sh–tiest part of the game.

I feel like if I had to apologize to anyone, it would be Mike. This sucks. Nobody wanted to fight this fight more than me. It’s really out of my hands, and I wish him luck. He stepped up, and he’s fighting Will on short notice. I’ll be pulling for him.

Alvarez believes he will be back training in weeks, rather than months. And when he does resume training, it will be with his usual intensity.

’m not going to fix something that’s not broken, said Alvarez. I win quite often, and I train a certain way. It works for me. So I won’t be going any less hard than what I do. At the Blackzilians, we go very hard. Our pace is high, and it’s very real, the fights that go on within our gym. I don’t want that to change. I feel like that’s a huge part of our success. If I could change anything, I feel like some protocols may be put in place like they have in the NFL and every other sport. But I don’t even know if that’s doable, considering this is an individual sport. I don’t feel like I did anything I could have avoided, that I was being negligent. I just think it was unfortunate what happened, and it could happen to anyone.