Michael Chandler dealt Eddie Alvarez (pictured) his first loss on Saturday since December 2008. (Henry S. Dziekan III/Getty Images)

Bellator’s newly-crowned lightweight king Michael Chandler and predecessor Eddie Alvarez left it all in the cage Saturday at Bellator 58 in Hollywood, Fla. Three days removed from what some are already ranking among the top three fights of 2011, the dynamic pair both have the war wounds to prove it.

Chandler (9-0), who secured a rear-naked choke in the fourth round to unseat the long-reigning Alvarez (22-3), hobbled away from the cage with a sprained right ankle from a hyper-extended kick to his opponent’s body, two black eyes and four stitches to his face.

“It was the first time I’ve felt pain during a fight,” said Chandler, who earned a crack at Alvarez by winning Bellator’s eight-man tournament earlier this year. “Thankfully the adrenaline kicked in and I went into the mode where I knew I’d be swollen and bruised anyway the next day, so why not go for it?”

Alvarez, 27, didn’t fair any better. On Tuesday, he made his way to the doctor’s office for X-rays, fearing he’d torn cartilage around his ribcage and to check the still-swollen left side of his face for a possible fracture. This was in addition to the 45-minute stitching session he endured backstage for a severely split lip, courtesy of a bell-beating knockdown Chandler delivered at the end of the first round.

The Philadelphia-bred fighter said his lip was so torn, he could feel it “flopping in the wind” between rounds. Alvarez tucked the dangling flesh into his mouth and answered the second-round bell, hoping the referee wouldn’t notice it.

“(Bellator’s cutman) told me I had to go out there and knock him out because the doctor was going to stop it. This sort of f—ed up my mentality and made me feel a little desperate,” said Alvarez, who was Bellator’s biggest signing when the promotion debuted on ESPN Deportes in April 2009.

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Michael Chandler (right) hopes his extensive collegiate experience can compensate for a thin professional resume. (Tim Vizer/Icon SMI)

Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez (22-2) is known as one of the best mixed martial artists in any weight class that isn’t currently fighting in the UFC. Michael Chandler (8-0) is just known as the opponent Alvarez is fighting to retain his belt Saturday at Bellator 58 (9 p.m. ET, MTV2).

That could change soon. The undefeated Chandler burst onto the MMA scene by winning the Bellator Season 4 Lightweight Tournament. He’s now one of three former Missouri wrestlers with a perfect record in MMA. (Bellator welterweight champ Ben Askren and Strikeforce welterweight Tyron Woodley are both 9-0). Winning the Bellator title Saturday would make Chandler the third Missouri wrestler to start his MMA career with nine straight wins.

“We’ve all got a streak going and we all want to continue that,” said Chandler, who still keeps in touch with his former teammates as if they were older brothers. “Missouri’s always been a blue-collar school. It’s always been about hard work.”

Lots of wrestlers have successfully transitioned to MMA, including four from Arizona State, but Chandler says he owes his success to Mizzou’s work ethic as much as his wrestling background. The former All-American wrestler could have taken a scholarship offer to a smaller school, but instead chose to walk-on to Missouri’s program. Askren and Woodley — who were both team captains during Chandler’s freshman year — were immediately impressed by Chandler.

“I took him under my wing,” said Askren, a two-time NCAA champion who was impressed by the walk-on’s work ethic.

Chandler became a four-time NCAA qualifier at 157 pounds — don’t get Askren started about a bad call in the quarterfinals that may have coast Chandler a national championship — and now few doubt his wrestling pedigree. The 25-year-old from High Ridge, Mo. (pop. 4,598), who wasn’t supposed to make it at Missouri, is now one of Bellator’s top young prospects.

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Bellator Fighting Championships lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez got the news that Viacom had purchased a majority share of the promotion he fights for along with everyone else this week.

Alvarez (22-2) said he figured it would have been the UFC, not the world’s fourth-largest media conglomerate, that would have recognized the quality of the Bellator product and eventually buy it.

“Originally, when the UFC purchased Strikeforce (last March), I got very on edge,” said Alvarez, whom I interviewed Thursday on CyberstationUSA.com’s Last Call Internet radio show. “I called (Bellator owner) Bjorn Rebney to ask him if there was any possible way that I could buy stake in Bellator. The way (the UFC) was buying up promotions like that, I didn’t want them to come in on Bellator without me being able to capitalize on it.”

Rebney had been open to the idea of his star fighter purchasing stake in the company, said Alvarez, but followup discussions never happened.

However, once Zuffa LLC, the parent company of the UFC, announced that it had signed a seven-year exclusive broadcast deal with the Fox Broadcasting Network across its multiple TV platforms in September, Alvarez said it was a foregone conclusion that Bellator would have filled the void left by the UFC on Viacom’s Spike TV. Bellator currently airs on MTV2, another Viacom property, while Spike.com has recently begun airing Bellator’s preliminary bouts.

The plan is for Bellator to make its debut on Spike TV in 2013, once the cable network’s exclusive contract to air UFC footage only in 2012 expires.

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