Frankie Edgar’s coach, Mark Henry, says that it’s clear Conor McGregor is afraid to defend his featherweight title against “The Answer”.
Color long-time boxing coach and mentor of Frankie Edgar, Mark Henry, not impressed with recent reports surrounding a rematch between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz at UFC 200.
Edgar, who knocked out Chad Mendes in the first round at The Ultimate Fighter 22 finale, was expected to challenge McGregor for the featherweight title before the Irishman decided to pursue lightweight gold in an effort to become the promotion’s first simultaenous two-division champion.
“The Notorious” was slated to lock horns with Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 196 but the Brazilian was forced to withdraw from the contest after suffering a broken foot. Enter Nate Diaz. Diaz was selected as the late-replacement, although the UFC said they offered Edgar and Jose Aldo to step up on short notice first, and shocked the world when he submitted McGregor in the 2nd round.
The fight was fought at welterweight and McGregor was expected to return to his championship weight class to defend the title against The Answer. Henry says the decision to book a rematch with Diaz indicates that the SBG Ireland product is running scared of Edgar.
“Well, first of all, it’s expected,” Henry said on the Talking Brawls podcast on Thursday (h/t BJPenn.com). “I think Conor is straight out afraid of Frankie, you know, he won’t fight Frankie, even off this last injury they called Nate before they called Frankie. You heard off Nate that they were calling him for two months about this fight just in case something happens. Even if Frankie’s groin was ok, they were never going to give this fight to Frankie. It’s typical non-torious, he just keeps running away from Frankie.”
Although the bout is not confirmed, McGregor made a post hinting at the bout on Instagram yesterday and his coach John Kavanagh says the welterweight rematch is expected to be announced prior to next week. If confirmed, it’s likely that Frankie Edgar will square off with Jose Aldo for the interim feathwerweight title on the same night.
UFC 200 will take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 9th.