‘No Excuses’ for Warlley Alves

Three consecutive losses have painted Warlley Alves into a corner a decade into his Ultimate Fighting Championship tenure.

“The Ultimate Fighter Brazil” Season 3 winner will attempt to stop the proverbial bleeding when he faces Abusupiyan Magomedov in a three-round UFC Fight Night 241 middleweight prelim on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Alves, 33, sports a head-above-water 8-7 record in the UFC, but he has not visited victory lane in more than three years, leading many to question whether or not he can hold down on a spot on the roster much longer.

“It’s a bad and difficult period for me,” he told Sherdog.com. “I put myself in a situation where there’s a good chance that only the winner of this next fight will keep his job. I have no excuses. This is a high-level game. You can pay for the difference of a millimeter. What I can do about it is to get ready far in advance this time and to give my best in training. I’m looking forward to getting back to my winning ways. I don’t enjoy the fact that losses are learning experiences, but I did take the time to reflect and change direction.”

Alves only knows one way forward.

“I have to keep doing good work with the right people around me,” he said. “I feel God chose me for this. I’ll keep trying to be champ as long as I’m able. When God wills it, I’ll be done. I used to have the dream—or illusion—that I would retire undefeated. My losses had a bitter taste, but they reminded me that I’m human. We can make mistakes. We can fall. We can do everything right, and everything can go wrong. My biggest lesson is resilience.”

Those words figure to be put to the test in Alves’ lates assignment. A Professional Fighters League finalist in 2018, Nurmagomedov also enters the cage pointed in the wrong direction. The UFD Gym representative has suffered back-to-back defeats to Sean Strickland and Caio Borralho since he made his promotional debut with a 19-second technical knockout of Dustin Stoltzfus at UFC Fight Night 209.

“I’m not one to predict how a fight will play out,” Alves said. “This is fighting. A single punch changes everything. Like Mike Tyson said, ‘Everyone has a plan ’til they get punched in the mouth.’ My game plan has been drawn up. Ours will be a fight the fans will love. We are going to beat each other up. We both are trying to keep our jobs, so I expect he’ll also come with everything. I believe it will be the ‘Fight of the night.’”

No matter the outcome, Alves sounds like someone who has grown comfortable with what he sees in the mirror—as a man and as a professional prizefighter. Age and mileage have left him with a deep reservoir of knowledge and wisdom from which he can draw upon.

“I’m very grateful for everything the UFC has done in my life,” Alves said. “Living from fighting was a dream of mine. I plan to honor that, give my best and walk away with a win. Beyond that, my plans are to win my next fights. When I was younger, I was idealistic and used to map out my path to the championship belt. Today, I take it one step at a time. It was my biggest lesson in these 10 years in the UFC. My most important step is the next fight.”