As far as UFC president Dana White is concerned, former Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez would make a fine addition to his company's 155-pound division.
The 28-year old Philadelphia lightweight has just become mixed martial arts' hottest free agent. Alvarez raised his record to 24-3 on Friday night with a spectacular knockout head kick against Patricky Friere in the final bout of Alvarez's Bellator contract.
Asked at the UFC 153 post-fight press conference in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday night whether he's interested in Alvarez's services, White answered in the affirmative.
"We're definitely interested in him and we have been for awhile," White said.
Alvarez's win over Friere was his ninth in his past 10 fights, a stretch which includes wins over the likes of Shinya Aoki, Roger Huerta and Josh Neer. His only defeat in that stretch was an upset submission loss to Michael Chandler, in which Chandler took the Bellator title.
Barring any provisions which might prevent the UFC from negotiating with Alvarez in the short-term -- while we don't know the specifics of Alvarez's contract terms, Bellator's contracts have been known to contain provisions in which the company has the right to match outside offers over a specified period of time -- White sees the company talking to Alvarez as soon as possible.
"Eddie Alvarez's contract is up," White said. "Obviously we're in there, we're going to talk to him soon. I don't know what the stipulations on his contract are, whether we're going to talk him now or whether there's more time, but, you know, we'll dive in and we'll see what happens."