Make no mistake: Frankie Edgar would jump at the chance to take on Conor McGregor inside the octagon.
He just doesn’t believe it’s in the cards.
“No, I don’t. I don’t think it’s gonna happen,” Edgar told reporters Monday in midtown Manhattan. “Of course, I’d love it. I’d fight him [at] any weight class. I mean, who wouldn’t want to fight him?”
Edgar (22-5-1), a former UFC lightweight champion, had hoped to face McGregor, the current titleholder, as far back as 2015. That was the year McGregor won the featherweight crown, a title that continues to elude Edgar entering his pay-per-view co-headlining bout against unbeaten Brian Ortega (13-0, 1 no-contest) on Saturday during UFC 222 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The winner is expected to face 145-pound champ Max Holloway later this year.
Edgar’s public skepticism of ever facing the top star in MMA comes on the heels of McGregor’s social media proclamation last week that he offered to face Edgar on short notice this weekend. Edgar had been scheduled to face Holloway in Saturday’s main event, but the Hawaiian suffered an injury in training and was forced to withdraw four weeks before the fight.
“I put my name forward to step in at UFC 222 to face Frankie Edgar when Max Holloway pulled out, but I was told there wasn’t enough time to generate the money that the UFC would need,” McGregor wrote on Instagram.
That rubbed Edgar’s team the wrong way. His manager, Ali Abdel-Aziz, compared the Irish star to “a prostitute” in comments to TMZ. Mark Henry, Edgar’s coach, claimed on Instagram that McGregor ducked the New Jersey native three times previously.
Edgar, on the other hand, prefers to get his message across with actions over words. Labeling the social media stunt “a typical Conor move,” he chalked the situation up to McGregor, who last fought Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his August boxing debut and hasn’t competed in MMA since winning the 155-pound title in November 2016 at Madison Square Garden, finding “a good way to stay in the news cycle.”
“It’s just funny; I didn’t have an opponent four weeks ago, but a week out from the fight he’s going to say he was going to fight me?” the 36-year-old Edgar said. “Come on, that’s bulls—.”
