Two of the best featherweights in the world are set to face off one day before the title is unified.
Chad Mendes and Frankie Edgar have verbally agreed to fight in the main event of The Ultimate Fighter 22 Finale on Dec. 11 in Las Vegas, multiple sources confirmed with MMAFighting.com. Lancenet.com in Brazil was the first to report the news. The next day, champion Jose Aldo and titleholder Conor McGregor will fight in the UFC 194 main event in the same city.
Mendes (17-3) took an interim title fight with McGregor on short notice at UFC 189 in July and lost via second-round TKO. He has also fallen to Aldo twice, but the second time was very close and one of the best fights of 2014. Mendes, 30, also defeated fellow top contender Ricardo Lamas via first-round knockout in April. The Team Alpha Male product’s only career losses have come against Aldo and McGregor.
Edgar (19-4-1) was the man that many thought should have been chosen to fight McGregor in July. He last fought in May, a unanimous decision win over Urijah Faber, Mendes’ teammate. Edgar, 33, is the former UFC lightweight champion and has won four fights in a row, including against featherweight contenders Cub Swanson and Charles Oliveira as well as legend B.J. Penn. The New Jersey native only has one loss at 145 in his career and it came against Aldo.
The winner of this fight is most likely to earn a title shot against either Aldo or McGregor in the future.
No venue has been announced for the TUF 22 Finale yet. The co-main event will pit Khabib Nurmagomedov in his return after more than a year out due to two knee surgeries against Tony Ferguson.