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Frankie Edgar talks about his loss to Korean Zombie and when he expects to make his bantamweight debut.
Accepting a short notice fight against Korean Zombie was a risk that didn’t pay off for Frankie Edgar.
Edgar was originally set to make his bantamweight debut against Corey Sandhagen at UFC Fight Night 166, but the former lightweight champ decided to step in for Brian Ortega when ‘T-City’ pulled out of his headlining featherweight bout with Chan Sung Jung at UFC Busan.
Edgar lost the bout via first-round TKO but has ‘no regrets’ about stepping up to fight Jung on short notice.
“It was something I did,” Edgar told MMA Fighting in a recent interview. “You can’t go back and dwell on sh*t you can’t change anyways. No regrets for me.
“Obviously, I wanted a different outcome, but I took the opportunity. It didn’t go my way. Sh*t happens, but those are the breaks. I was definitely depressed for a little bit, a little down on myself, but you move on. What else are you going to do?
Edgar would have liked a quick turnaround fight against Sandhagen on Jan. 25 but the Toms River, New Jersey product suffered a broken orbital in his TKO loss to Korean Zombie and will be out of action for the next six weeks.
“I broke my orbital,” he said. “Nothing super bad, no surgery. Just six weeks to heal and I’m good to go.”
With that said, Edgar is still committed to bantamweight but isn’t sure when, exactly, he’ll make his 135-pound debut.
“I’m going to go down to bantamweight,” Edgar said. “That was the whole plan before this obviously. The cards have been stacked against me my whole career being the smaller guy. Going out there and fighting in Korea on short notice, that kind of stacked the cards even more.
“I think what I need to do is put myself in a favorable position to win my next fight, and that’s at 135.”
As of today, Edgar is ranked #6 in the UFC featherweight rankings.