Frankie Edgar has made a career of fighting bigger men, even going so far as to win the UFC’s lightweight title, but as the time ticks closer to his inevitable retirement Edgar says that now is the time to complete his move down to 135-pounds to allow himself more of an even playing field for the latter part of his career.
Edgar had been due to make his 135 pound debut against Cory Sandhagen later this month but an injury suffered by Brian Ortega days out from his scheduled UFC Busan main event against the ‘Korean Zombie’ Chan Sung Jung but ever the opportunist, Edgar nominated himself as the replacement but was finished via strikes inside the first round for just the second time in his career.
It is unclear what direction Edgar would have taken had he been successful in that fight but the result, he says, has left him more determined to finally make that move to the bantamweight division and try his hand there.
“I’m going to go down to bantamweight,” Edgar said to MMA Fighting. “That was the whole plan before this obviously. The cards have been stacked against me my whole career being the smaller guy.
“Going out there and fighting in Korea on short notice, that kind of stacked the cards even more. I think what I need to do is put myself in a favourable position to win my next fight, and that’s at 135.”
The gamble of the short notice fight with Jung in his home country didn’t pay off but Edgar refuses to dwell on the defeat as it is a position he volunteered to be in.
“It was something I did,” Edgar said. “You can’t go back and dwell on sh*t you can’t change anyways. No regrets for me.
“Obviously, I wanted a different outcome, but I took the opportunity. It didn’t go my way. Sh*t happens, but those are the breaks. I was definitely depressed for a little bit, a little down on myself, but you move on. What else are you going to do?”
A broken orbital, which doesn’t require surgery, is delaying the date of Edgar’s debut at 135 but he says that once he returns to full fitness he expects to be once again in the firing line for some of the company’s top dogs.
“I’m not worried about anything right now,” he said. “I’m not thinking of anything yet. I want to heal up. I’m already back in the gym doing what I can do right now, obviously not getting punched in the face or anything, but just trying to improve.
“I’m going to see what the UFC says, what they want from me. Coming off two losses, even though they’re up a weight class, I don’t know what they’re going to give me. But I’m always game.”
