Key Takeaways
- Sam Alvey was once a veteran in the UFC, but now he's making history elsewhere.
- The 39-year-old fights in the Karate Combat pit and is one of the company's brightest stars.
- Alvey sat down with RG and discussed his MMA journey and explained how Karate Combat has resurrected his career.
Sam Alvey poses on the scale (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
First-ever Karate Combat double champion “Smile’n” Sam Alvey never dreamed of making history in combat sports growing up. Instead, Alvey’s eyes were set on becoming a WWE superstar, to this day still willing to drop everything for such an opportunity.
Alvey admitted to RG that he also had little to no athletic inclination, much more so a band nerd that would go on to blossom into a semi-professional trumpet player.
It was his dad who would eventually coin the “Smile’n” nickname, sitting around the table, pitching it as the kind of alias that people would notice, chant, and most importantly, remember. Alvey instantly loved the thought, however, only with the apostrophe: “Smile’n,” not “Smiling.” That showmanship-first mindset stuck with him through every step, partly why Alvey doesn’t even consider himself a martial artist, preferring a more accurate term of prizefighter.
Built On Action & Audacity
The fire that sparked his interest in fighting didn't grow from tradition or discipline, either; it was molded by Jackie Chan movies and his beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Interestingly enough, Alvey embarked on a professional MMA career without any formal training background, entering cage fights with no real style, no refined technique — simply grit and a somewhat delusional confidence that he was tough enough to figure it out. Nonetheless, that was just enough to get the eventual UFC veteran started, although it was still quite a brutal way to learn the sport for a Waterford, Wisconsin, native in the late 2000s.
"I don't know if anybody will be able to do it like that again," Alvey argued. "I might be the last one to be able to just start fighting without training. It was a different era. In Wisconsin, there was one black belt in jiu-jitsu. That was it. Didn't want to fight that guy. John "White Trash" Friedland was his name. Now, they've got school after school. But no, I don't think I could do it the same if I started now. You need a base in something. I always just had the mindset that if they offer, you say yes. That's how I fought through my career. They offered, and I said yes. It turned into me being one of the more successful fighters to ever live."
So You Want To Be A Fighter?
That “Say Yes” philosophy helped the Team Quest product land a spot on The Ultimate Fighter 16 cast in 2012 (Team Carwin v. Team Nelson), but there was an unforgiving catch to the potential career-altering opportunity. Alvey had just 28 days to cut 40 pounds and make the welterweight limit, despite never fighting in the weight class (and frankly, without even knowing how to cut weight outside of sheer effort, which in short just meant eating less and training more). That approach worked for his opening knockout win, but by his second fight on the show, the dieting crash caught up and contributed to a deflating decision loss.
Side note: Alvey’s worst weight cut wasn’t even for TUF. It was actually leading into a 2017 bout in Poland, which forced him to drop 42 pounds in 11 days. Same method, same misery.
Unlike many fighters who look back on TUF as a defining period, Alvey found the experience to be unexpectedly dull. Maybe as a minor consolation, it would at least end up making him present for one of the show’s more unforgettable moments, as the chaotic TUF 16 “Let Me Bang, Bro” episode remains a fan favorite and never-ending meme.
While the house didn’t catapult Alvey directly into the UFC, he went back to the drawing board and earned his ticket to the big leagues in less than two years. During this same span, Alvey also married America’s Next Top Model winner McKey Sullivan and stepped into fatherhood. It's a terrifying stretch when the now father of six reflects on how martial arts shifted from a young adult’s random ambition to a family man’s necessity, as providing quickly became the real fight at hand.
The Road To Redemption
Alvey has done something few fighters can claim: logged over 50 professional bouts, notched more than 20 knockouts, and competed across four different weight divisions throughout his career. His UFC run alone lasted nearly a decade. But when people talk about his resume, Alvey still often feels like the ending speaks louder than his journey. A rough stretch to close out his time in the UFC has left many fans and critics overlooking just how much ground he had already covered.
Alvey went winless in his final nine UFC appearances with a record of 0-8-1, finished five times inside two rounds for one of the worst losing skids imaginable. Needless to say, you would've been hard-pressed to find many people who were betting on “Smile'n” Sam to reach new heights and completely reinvent himself beyond his time with the MMA leaders.
"Karate Combat has been the reawakening of my career,” Alvey said. “It's been blooming with them. People are starting to really realize how good I am."
"I know I've still got it,” Alvey continued. “I could walk into any gym in the world, any gym, and I would be, if not the best person in that gym, the top two. It's just the way it is. I know I could beat any person. Deep down in my soul, Jon Jones would be the easy fight for me. Now, whether in reality or not that's true, I'd be willing to find out. But deep down, I know that's the way it is. I wasn't ready to give it up. I know I'm still worth something."
Less than three years after parting ways with the UFC, Alvey has watched the seemingly impossible somehow become the destiny of his career’s resurrection.
He’s now unbeaten through five fights and captured both light heavyweight and heavyweight gold within the surging Karate Combat promotion, most recently knocking out Tyrone Spong in May to become the company's first-ever double champion. Finally, this 39-year-old veteran of the fight game gets to witness people paying attention to the full Sam Alvey story.
"Especially after the Tyrone Spong fight, I feel like people are truly realizing the level of this that I am,” Alvey said. “Being in the UFC is one thing. I got there, and I was really successful for a long time. But stepping away and being highlighted like I am with Karate Combat is making a world of difference. I think the world, maybe at least the internet, is siding a little more with ‘Smile'n’ Sam right now."
