When served up the opportunity on a silver platter to slam Conor McGregor at the “Go Big” press conference last week, former 155-pound champion Frankie Edgar kept as cool as a cucumber.
He would have been rightly justified in joining fellow Featherweight stars Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes in going tit for tat in a verbal sparring match with the “Notorious” Irishman, but Edgar took a higher road and suggested he’d be more than happy to take the big money fight against McGregor.
So does that mean the two are friends? Well, not exactly.
“He knows how to sell himself, but he’s his biggest fan,” Edgar explains. “I have never been one to cross a line to sell fights, and I think he’s crossed a few lines, but I don’t s**t talk Conor, even though he kind of invites it himself. I carry myself with a certain class — as do several other fighters who could be a lot richer if they did those things. We just don’t.”
Edgar has flown in somewhat under the radar in the 145-pound division since falling to the judges yet again in his weight class debut against Jose Aldo. That might have something to do with the fact Edgar has quietly gone about his business collecting four wins in a row against top-ranked talents such as Cub Swanson, Charles Oliveira and Urijah Faber.
When pressed on his opinion about McGregor, however, the New Jersey native has some takeaways from his last fight against Mendes for the interim Featherweight title at UFC 189.
“You can’t say 100 percent that Chad wins that fight with a full camp,” he said. “Chad is known to get tired but, you know, the hype of that fight has a factor too. Yeah, it was just fifteen days notice, so that could zap his cardio, but based on what he did in that round before he got finished, he was pretty much steamrolling Conor. If he was more prepared could he have done that for five rounds? I don’t know. It’s hard to say.”
Edgar will find out what Mendes is like with a full camp in a few short months when they face off at the TUF 22 Finale event on Dec. 11, 2015, the night before Aldo will try and defend his six-year title reign against McGregor at UFC 194 in Las Vegas’s MGM Grand Garden Arena.
However, should Aldo suffer another unexpected injury prior to the match, Edgar is ready to “Answer” the call from UFC matchmakers.
“If someone gets hurt I’m the guy stepping in. And that’s from Dana White. You can print that in bold letters! I want that title. That, to me, is the most important thing. Conor may be the money fight, but when you win a title that stays with you forever. Money comes and goes. You’re a champ for the rest of your life. I did it at 155 and I want to do it at 145.”
A fight between Edgar and McGregor is intriguing for several reasons. Not only is the former Lightweight champion a prolific striker on the feet, he wrestled while at Clarion University in Pennsylvania, qualifying for the nationals all four years during his education. He demonstrated he hasn’t lost that touch in his five-round destruction of Swanson.
Considering Mendes was able to put McGregor on his back, it’s fairly certain the cardio machine would able to repeat that accomplishment.
If the stars align in December, Edgar might just get a chance to prove it sooner rather than later.
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