Elias (The Spartan) Theodorou looks to put first UFC loss behind him

TORONTO – It can be billed as a battle of good hair and a winning smile.

But for both Toronto middleweight Elias (The Spartan) Theodorou and American (Smile’n) Sam Alvey, Saturday’s UFC fight in Ottawa is more a chance to put a loss behind them than flaunt their looks.

Theodorou (11-1-0) suffered his first defeat in December, beaten by tough Brazilian Thiago Santos via unanimous decision after three straight wins in the Octagon. Alvey (25-7-0 with one no contest) saw his three-fight win streak — all first-round knockouts — snapped in August when he was stopped by Derek Brunson in the first round.

Alvey, 30, was then forced to drop out of a planned February fight against Daniel Sarafian after suffering a broken jaw in training.

Theodorou and Alvey will meet in the featured bout on the segment of the card streamed on Fight Pass. Rory MacDonald, a B.C., native who now fights out of Montreal, faces Stephen (Wonderboy) Thompson in a clash of top welterweight contenders in the main event of the televised show at The Arena at TD Place.

The 28-year-old Theodorou is a colourful character who uses his creative advertising degree from Humber College to good use in self-promotion. He likes to boast he has the best hair in MMA and sports an eclectic resume that includes stuntwork, an appearance on “The Amazing Race Canada” and stints as a romance novel cover boy.

“I’m a very big extrovert,” he told The Canadian Press in 2014. “A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met.”

The UFC has high hopes that the gregarious Theodorou can help carry the company flag in Canada.

But the Santos loss reinforced there is more work to do in the cage despite a seemingly endless gas tank. A late-comer to the sport after his first year in college, he has acknowledged being behind in the fundamentals.

“I’m always playing catchup,” he says.

Theodorou used kicks to fend Santos off in the first round in Las Vegas, then fell back into his normal strategy of looking to grind down his opponent at close quarters.

“I doubled down on trying to take him down,” he said.

It didn’t work. Theodorou’s face was a bloody mask by the end of the fight and he needed 30 stitches to close a cut over his eye.

“Going forward it just motivated me in the sense that I know the difference between defeat and victory now. And victory is so much sweeter, especially in Vegas,” he said of the loss.

The loss also showed him he can fight through tough times. While his strategy failed him, Theodorou kept plugging away against Santos.

“Obviously not only did I show everyone else but I showed myself. Because up until now I’ve been able to just win.”

Theodorou, winner of the “The Ultimate Fighter Nations” in 2014, has moved his training base around in the past often spending a few weeks here and a few weeks there. This time he has been at Montreal’s Tristar gym since the end of February to train for Alvey.

Living in the dorm at the gym, he says this camp reminded him of his time on the reality TV show. “I love it … It’s like MMA university,” he said.

Alvey’s omnipresent smile was seen on Season 16 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” when he was coach Shane Carwin’s first pick but lost a majority decision to Joey Rivera in his first bout. He went on to fight in Bellator and the Edmonton-based Maximum Fighting Championship, where he won the middleweight title, before signing with the UFC.

Alvey’s corner includes his wife Brittany (McKey) Sullivan, who has won kudos from Alvey for her hand-wrapping skills. Sullivan has other talents, having won a season of “America’s Next Top Model.”

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