LAS VEGAS – When UFC President Dana White isn’t willing to speak on a subject, it’s a pretty safe assumption things aren’t exactly going well.

And so it is with his promotion’s ongoing negotiations with former Bellator Fighting Championships lightweight title holder Eddie Alvarez (24-3 MMA, 8-1 BFC).

“I just don’t know if I can talk about it,” White told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) following Thursday’s pre-UFC 155 press conference in Las Vegas. “It’s going to get ugly.”

As MMAjunkie.com reported earlier this month, Bellator officials are currently in possession of a UFC offer for the coveted free-agent lightweight. At the time, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney said the company would waive its typical 90-day exclusive negotiating period in hopes of making a decision whether or not to match the offer by the first week of 2013.

“It really becomes for us a mathematical analysis,” Rebney said. “We know where we would want to be with Ed, we know what kind of a deal structure would work for Bellator and our partners at Spike TV, and we’re just waiting.

“We’d like to keep him, but it will all boil down to the numbers.”

Where exactly those numbers stand has yet to be revealed. Former middleweight champion Hector Lombard earlier this year left the promotion and made his UFC debut in July, bringing with him a 25-fight unbeaten streak. Rebney at one point, in published reports, estimated Lombard’s UFC deal, including a signing bonus, to be worth a minimum of $700,000 for his debut.

Meanwhile, Alvarez long has been considered one of the top lightweights not in the UFC, along with current Strikeforce champion Gilbert Melendez. In April, Alvarez avenged one of only three losses on his record when he stopped Shinya Aoki with punches in the first round. And in October, in what could prove to be his final Bellator fight, he stopped Patricky “Pitbull” Freire with a head-kick knockout late in the first round.

Alvarez’s resume also includes wins over current Bellator featherweight champ Pat Curran in the lone defense of his Bellator lightweight title, as well as Roger Huerta, Josh Neer and Joachim Hansen. But the one criticism has been that he hasn’t faced the level of competition the UFC’s 155-pound class has to offer.

Whether or not he’ll soon get that chance remains a mystery, at least after talking to the UFC boss. But it doesn’t sound exactly promising.

“I don’t know if I can talk about it,” White said. “If I could talk about it, I would. I think it’s going to get ugly.”

For more on the UFC’s and Bellator’s upcoming schedules, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.

(Pictured: Eddie Alvarez)