Sam Alvey credits 'finding that groove' and his wife's input for UFC success

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Wild

Zi Nazi
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
85,004
123,331


UFC middleweight Sam Alvey is always smiling, hence the nickname "Smilin'", but with a three-fight win streak in the Octagon, he's got a lot of reasons to be grinning.

"I've been getting hit up on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Just everything," Alvey told The MMA Hour's Ariel Helwani of his recent surge in terms of fan visibility. "It's been almost all positive lately. My wife, she's huge into the forums. She's been reading the forums out loud to me every night. It was a great fight. It was a good opportunity. I'm very happy with the outcome."

He's referencing his win in the Philippines on May 10 where he knocked out Australian judoka Dan Kelly in Adelaide in just 49 seconds into the first round. It's the third fight Alvey's won in a row in the UFC, all of them coming by way of first-round stoppage.

Alvey says that's helped enormously with getting positive praise and more attention, something he's not used to in his mixed martial arts career, whether in person or online.

"The Internet's a dangerous place," he noted. "More people than not, to this day, have been anti-Sam Alvey on the Internet. But it doesn't bother me. It's the Internet for a reason. People need a place to vent and I'm happy at least that they're talking about me whether it's positive or negative."

Con'd...

The Team Quest fighter says the act of smiling is something he's been known for for more than just his fighting career.

"I'd have to look back in my yearbook, but I might've been voted Best Smile. That might be in the yearbook still. My parents did something right. I've just been a happy kid, happy guy my whole life."

Nicknames are nice, but Alvey's results in the cage are something to behold and take seriously. It's not as if Alvey ever did poorly in MMA, but until recently, he wasn't doing this well. Something's different now. According to him, it's everything in life lining up in the way it hadn't before.

"I'm finding that groove," he says. "I've got a lot of fights and MMA's kind of a streak sport. Luckily, I've been blessed never to have a streak on my losing side, but I'm hot right now. I'm going to keep staying hot. I'll make that run for the title over time.

"I practice as hard now as I ever had," he continued. "I have had a couple of really good camps. My head coach, Dan Henderson, my fights have kind of been lining up with his, so I've gotten to really piggyback off who he brings in and who he's training with and getting to work out with him is a blessing in its own. I've been hitting that stride with training, with camps and fighting."

But there's another key ingredient to Alvey's success and that's his better half. Some might know her from her stint as a winner on season 11 of America's Next Top Model, Mckey Sullivan. As many have noticed, she's in the corner for every one of Alvey's fights, something Alvey says is no accident or recent turn of events.

"She has been in every corner of mine since I started fighting," Alvey noted. "I tell everyone. It started off, if she was in my corner, she was a free ticket in. We didn't have to buy anything. She took it more serious than I did. To this day, she knows more about the guys I'm fighting than I do.

"She's in the meetings. She's game planning with us. She's working at home. She is the one who kinds of choreographs how it's going to be. She's calls [my fights], down to the round I finish the guys in. She's a gift to me camp."

LINK to full article: Sam Alvey credits 'finding that groove' and his wife's input for UFC success - MMA Fighting
 

Wild

Zi Nazi
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
85,004
123,331
In that article, he talks about how well she wraps hands. Pretty cool stuff.
 

Guy Smalley

MMA Cartoonist
Jun 2, 2015
50
52
I talk to alot of fighters in my work as a mma cartoonist, hands down Sam & his wife are the nicest, grounded happy people i have met. Dealing with them is such a pleasure and she does know the fight game and is a partner with Sam . Really cool to see and they deserve all the success they get
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