Frankie Edgar has been promised another shot at the UFC Featherweight Championship on a number of occasions to date, and the quite-unhappy 34-year-old is once again not expecting things to go his way after Conor McGregor’s UFC 194 win over Jose Aldo.
“Realistically, I’m setting myself up for that already. I’m setting myself up for hope for the best, expect the worst,” he said in an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour on Monday.
“I’m expecting the worst.”
Edgar’s rightfully frustrated with how things have continued to play out against him, especially since it’s happened time and time again.
“For sure, I’m pissed,” he said. “I’ve been at it for a while now, I’ve been knocking on the door for this title shot for a while. It started with Cub [Swanson]. If Cub beat me he was promised a title shot. I beat him, I finished him in pretty dominating fashion and no, I’m not even considered for that title shot. I take it in stride. I do everything in stride, I really do think I’m a company man, but it’s not really panning out for me being that way.
Despite how upset he continues to be with the current landscape, he’s also not sure how much else he could do. He’s heard the calls for him to speak up about it, but it’s clear he’s done that already, unfortunately to no avail.
“People, my whole career say, ‘you’re too quiet, you need to say stuff,’ and the minute you say something it’s, ‘you’re f***ing crying,'” he lamented. “I mean come on, you just can’t win with these people. And you really can’t pay attention to them. The people I need to talk to are Dana and Lorenzo, and they seem like they’re not listening either.
“What am I going to do, scream and shout? What can I do? Dana and Lorenzo, they know what I want man. People are like, ‘you need to call them.’ They f***ing know what I want. What, am I going to bother them? For what? For them to say no? So they can promise me something one day and say no the next? Come on.”
Penick’s Analysis: It’s a really crappy spot for him to be in with how much he’s done since that first fight with Jose Aldo. He’s been so good, and has only gotten better as evidenced by that quick win over Chad Mendes last month, but there’s only so much that can be done right now. There’s just as much of a case for an Aldo-McGregor rematch given how long Aldo’s reign was, and there’s an equally compelling case for McGregor trying to become a dual division champion. The UFC has realistic options all around, and though Edgar is just as valid as the other two for McGregor’s next fight, it’s completely out of his hands.
[Frankie Edgar art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Promising title shots is stupid, no value for the UFC to do it. The only reasons it makes sense is to promote a #1 contenders match with popular fighters or perhaps as a part of signing a fighter. Outside of that, UFC can only come up looking like bad guys and fighters will only get pissed when better options take someone’s promised shot away.