Smilin’ Sam would love to fight either Paul Brother.
‘Smilin’ Sam Alvey will be well remembered by MMA fans for his prolonged UFC tenure, which started all the way back in 2014. After eight years in the Octagon Alvey, now 36, was released from the promotion earlier this year.
And it seems Alvey isn’t done with fisticuffs just yet. On the Talkin’ MMA podcast, Alvey discussed the potential of boxing either Jake Paul or Logan Paul. Those characters aren’t totally unfamiliar to Alvey. He actually sparred Logan. However, Alvey claims what happened during that session scared Jake from wanting to trade blows with him,
“Logan seemed like a nice guy,” said Alvey (ht MMA News). “Jake Paul didn’t want to spar with me after he saw me with Logan. I was being super nice to him. I mean I was the experienced guy, he was the YouTube guy.”
When asked about the influencer/hobby boxers’ skills, Alvey was pretty blunt.
“No, they’re garbage,” he said. “Very athletic, at least Logan. I didn’t get to spar with Jake Paul. And you can tell they both used to be high school wrestling champions or state champions, I think. Like, you can see Logan Paul in the WWE, very athletic.”
“They didn’t get tired, at least while we were training,” continued Alvey. “They were throwing with a lot of oomph and all that. But there was no footwork, there was no real strategy behind it. That was a long time ago also. This was five or six years ago, so I’m sure they have gotten better since then. But at the time, it was easy work for me.”
Alvey’s best spell in the UFC was in 2016 when he put together a four fight winning streak including stoppages of Eric Spicely and Kevin Casey and decision wins over Alex Nicholson and Nate Marquardt.
In 2018 Alvey lost to Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. That was the first loss in a 0-8-1 streak culminated in his release from the promotion.
Jake Paul is currently scheduled to box former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. That fight happens on Saturday (on Showtime PPV/Fite.tv).
It is expected that Paul will then take on the recently released Nate Diaz, also in a boxing match. Once those bouts are out the way, though, who knows — maybe we will see ‘The Problem Child’ vs. Smilin’ Sam.