Frankie fighting too soon!
Frankie Edgar is slated to fight Cub Swanson on April 21 at UFC Fight Night 128. This comes seven weeks after his first round TKO loss to Brian Ortega on March 3 at UFC 222. My initial thought is that this is too soon after a loss. It doesn’t feel as though this is sufficient time to recover from being stopped like he was. It doesn’t feel like this is right.
The problem, though, is that feelings aren’t objective. Nor are they what you should solely base your actions and thoughts on.
I’m a fan of Frankie Edgar, I’ve been a fan of his since he fought Tyson Griffin at UFC 67 in February 2007. I was excited and happy to see him defeat B.J. Penn at UFC 112 to win the UFC lightweight championship, beat Penn again, and I was amazed at his resiliency when he went to a draw with Gray Maynard at UFC 125 in what was considered the Fight of the Year by many.
I was upset when he lost to Benson Henderson in back-to-back fights, and when he lost to Jose Aldo after that. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time, through his many successes and his few defeats.
So I can’t help but wonder how much that plays into this? How much of my feeling that this is too soon is rooted in bias as a fan of his who doesn’t want to see him get hurt? Surely he’ll have to be medically cleared and tested before he can fight again, so why does it feel too soon? Edgar obviously knows his body better than anyone, so why should I voice an objection?
There is history here, though. Michael Bisping lost by submission to Georges St. Pierre at UFC 217 on November 4, 2017. He then fought again on November 25, 2017 at UFC Fight Night 122, a mere three weeks later. Bisping later admitted that was the wrong move. Of course, people are different and the timelines aren’t the same, but this does give you a little pause. At the same time, though, seven weeks is a lot longer than three weeks. Edgar did lose by TKO, though.
As you can see, it’s easy for me to tie myself in knots with reasons and explanations and all that stuff. The bottom line is, you just have to trust that Edgar is making the right decision here. He’s a professional and I’m sure he has a lot of people around him helping him make these decisions.
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Mayweather in MMA?
The talk of Floyd Mayweather fighting in MMA has continued to grow, with talk of him having applied for a license and all that stuff. And he’s supposed to be training with UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley and he keeps talking about it and yada yada yada.
I just don’t see anything coming from this because he’d get his ass kicked in MMA most likely. That’s not a diss to him so much as just reciting history. It’s extremely hard for guys to make the transition from one sport to another, especially if they haven’t been doing it for a long time.
Mayweather is not a trained wrestler or grappling master. He’s a boxing master. The amount of time he had to devote to that sport left him with little time to train in other areas. It would be unfair to expect him to be competitive against low-level MMA fighters, let alone guys at or near the top of their game, which is all the guys he would likely be fighting.
Conor McGregor had very little chance of beating Mayweather at boxing. The only thing that gave him a little hope was that he’s in his prime physical condition and was known for his striking in MMA. Couple that with Mayweather being in his early forties and there was a slight glimmer of a hope of a chance. And what happened? Mayweather basically did anything he wanted the entire fight.
So we’re to expect a guy who spent over half his life dedicated to one sport, to jump to another sport and fight guys who have spent half their lives dedicated to that sport? And for what?
There’s no way the UFC offers him anything even close to what he would want in order to fight. It’s been reported that Mayweather earned $250-300 million for his boxing match against McGregor. I even saw a report that Mayweather’s earnings could have reached $400 million, but it’s unclear.
Dana White once offered Mayweather $25 million to box McGregor, plus pay-per-view points. Mayweather laughed at that. That doesn’t bode well for the possibility that Mayweather would receive an offer he deems good enough in order to risk a MMA fight.
Mayweather wanted to retire from his boxing career undefeated, as he wants to be considered the greatest boxer of all-time. So why would a guy like that risk fighting in MMA when it’s pretty much a guaranteed loss? Unless he’s fighting a Glass Joe type in MMA, he’s going to lose. And lose badly, most likely. Why would he have spent so many years carefully choosing his fights only to throw it away at the end?
Yeah, MMA isn’t boxing and it shouldn’t reflect poorly on Mayweather’s boxing career if he loses a MMA fight. However, Mayweather has a lot of critics (some for his in-ring actions, others for his out-of-ring actions) and they would surely jump at the chance to ding him for anything.
I don’t think Mayweather’s ego and desire to be considered the best boxer of all-time, regardless of whether people do consider him the best or not, would allow him to let the image of him losing a fight get out there. However, even if he were to want to do this, I don’t think there’s any chance the UFC offers him enough money to do it. He’s not going to go from making a couple hundred million per fight to a quarter of that, especially not when the chances of losing are so high.
Would it be an interesting fight, no matter who he would face? Hell yeah. Would it be the most hyped fight in MMA history? Hell yeah. Is it at all likely to happen? Hell no!
Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank
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