Edgar hopes to learn from others’ mistakes
UFC lightweight contender Frankie Edgar doesn’t think he’s better than any of the fighters who’ve gone up against champion B.J….
UFC lightweight contender Frankie Edgar doesn’t think he’s better than any of the fighters who’ve gone up against champion B.J. Penn; he’s just different.
Edgar (11-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC), a Toms River, N.J. native who faces Penn (15-5-1 MMA, 11-4-1 UFC) at UFC 112 in April, has added an extra month to his usual eight-week camp to prepare for the challenge of a lifetime.
“The fighter that I am will present a challenge for B.J.,” Edgar recently told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “I’m just a little bit different with the way I approach my stand-up and my wrestling ability.”
He won’t say why he’s different (that’s top secret). But he believes he has the skill set to win the title where others have failed.
The UFC’s search for a suitable 155-pound contender lead the organization to Edgar’s door in January after Gray Maynard eeked out a split-decision victory over Nate Diaz at UFC Fight Night 20. Although Maynard had an April 2008 win over Edgar, UFC president Dana White felt Edgar is most ready for the title shot.
Edgar’s title prospects accelerated quickly after he took a risk this past December when he faced untested prospect Matt Veach and won soundly in the second round.
It might be a little self-serving, but Edgar thinks Diaz won the Jan. 11 fight. In this case, he agrees with Diaz’s post-fight rant that the guy who looks worse afterward is the winner.
“If you look at both of their faces afterward, Gray definitely took a little bit more punishment,” Edgar said. “But it was real close. It could have went either way. I’m a little biased, obviously. I thought Nate pulled it off, but I could see how it went Gray’s way as well.”
Still, the humble Edgar is simply grateful the UFC has taken a chance on him.
“It’s not my job to make those decisions,” he said. “They tell me to fight; I’m going to fight. Obviously, I wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity to fight for the title.”
And after Penn’s recent performances, “most ready” seemed as good as it was going to get when the promotion weighed the two contenders’ chances.
Penn routed Kenny Florian this past August at UFC 101 and put a brutal beating on Diego Sanchez four months later at UFC 107. Sanchez was never quite the same after Penn rattled his brain with a punch combination in the first round of the December bout. A skull-exposing cut to Sanchez from Penn’s leg brought an end to the punishment with the final-round TKO stoppage.
