Frankie Edgar’s Coach Opens Door For Possible Bantamweight Move
Frankie Edgar built himself up to be a title contender in the featherweight division after piling up a five fight winning streak going into UFC 200 against Jose Aldo for the interim featherweight title. Things fell apart for Edgar in that fight and lost to Aldo by unanimous decision. Mark Henry recently spoke with Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting about the fight.
“He was right there for the belt,” Henry said Monday on The MMA Hour. “As soon as that fight ended, it was one of the biggest fights in my head that I could remember where right when the fight ended there was like 10 things or 15 things that went through my head — should’ve done this, should’ve done that, should’ve called this, should’ve called that — that would’ve worked, that Frankie would’ve done.
“Frankie is so amazing, man. You just have to yell out anything to him and he’ll jump all over it. He trusts in his corner a lot, and I just think that the chasing — we were just trying to be so aggressive and kind of left our game a little bit, instead of taking the time and working more of our game. I think we just rushed things a little bit. It reminded me a little bit of (T.J.) Dillashaw (versus) Dominick Cruz, where Dillashaw kind of left his game a little bit, just rushing after him and trying to just go after him, and wasn’t putting technique into play.”
Henry praied Edgar for being one of the best fighters in the world but also pointed out the Edgar is a true bantamweight (135lb) fighter and not a featherweight (145lb) fighter. Henry believes that Edgar dropping down in weight could get him closer to a title shot rather than staying at featherweight due to Conor McGregor, who is the current champion, fighting at different weight divisions as well as Aldo fighting McGregor when he returns to the weight division that he is at the top of.
“I think he’s one of the best fighters who ever walked on the face of the Earth,” Henry said of Edgar. “I think that people still don’t realize — like Marlon (Moraes), he’s a 135er, he’s bigger than Frankie. Frankie is a true 135er. I hate to say this stuff, but (when) Conor fights Nate (Diaz), it’s probably more of his weight class, 155, and they make the biggest deal out of Conor and he came up mega-short. Frankie had a title at 155 and came really close this last time at winning his second title, and he’s really a 135er.
“So, for me, I just really want to go the shortest cut to the next title, whether it be 135 or 145, whatever brings him the closest. That nine hours (with the new weigh-ins) didn’t help either, that extra nine hours at 145. Aldo, man, he looked big out there. I’ve had other guys too like Eddie (Alvarez) and Edson (Barboza), in their fights I asked them how they felt with that extra nine hours recovering from the weight cut and they both said how they both felt a lot different and a lot stronger. So that’s kind of tough too, when you give a guy nine extra hours on the weight cut, that Frankie has to kind of deal with now too.”
Current bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz doesn’t have his next challenger lined up so a fight with Edgar would definitely be possible.
