Pics: ‘Blinded’ Alvarez Shares NSFW Eye Injury | UFC Betting Sites

Use the < > arrows to scroll through his awful eye gallery.

This was not the debut Eddie Alvarez was hoping for.

The former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) lightweight champion was expected to make a fresh start — and run through the International competition — when he signed with ONE Championship late last year.

Instead, the “Underground King” was bounced in the first round of the promotion’s eight-man lightweight tournament last weekend in Tokyo, Japan, thanks to some brutal punches from 155-pound rising star, Timofey Nastyukhin.

“The punch that hit me instantly blinded me and split both eyelids in half,” Alvarez wrote on Instagram. “It felt like my eye exploded from the inside and the pain was instant. From an outsider watching myself, I should have expected the result considering my actions. You have to punch, kick, takedown and pressure to win a fight. I waited. I simply waited too long for the correct timing and opening that never came.”

No question Alvarez is disappointed in his performance, but it should be noted that he also dropped his debut fight for UFC, then went on to capture his next three, including the lightweight title in his July 2016 destruction of Rafael dos Anjos.

The counter to that, of course, is that Alvarez is now 35 and has a lot of miles on those tires, so it’s not unreasonable to think he’s shot or that his best days are behind him. I think we’ll have a better answer to those questions in his next appearance.

Which judging by these eye photos, might take awhile.