Frankie Edgar continues to argue against the referee’s stoppage decision during his UFC 268 fight against Marlon Vera on Saturday.
If you’re a Frankie Edgar fan, Saturday night’s fight was difficult to watch. For the second straight time, “The Answer” lost in highlight-reel fashion, this time via a front kick to the chin courtesy of Marlon Vera.
Edgar, however, continues to question the referee stoppage. He was already protesting as it happened then spoke about it further in a recent episode of his Champ and the Tramp podcast with MTV Jersey Shore personality Roger Matthews.
“I lost the fight, and that’s done. I’m proud of my performance, I’m proud of my team, I’m proud of the way I prepared. I did everything the right way; I was a hundred percent ready for the fight,” Edgar said.
“I thought I was doing well in the fight, first round especially. Second round was a little bit closer. Third round, I thought I was doing really well, too. I started picking up the pace, landing a lot of punches. Obviously, I got hit by that upkick. I wish the ref let it go a little bit longer.
“Do I think it was an early stoppage? Little bit. Obviously, I’m not the one… the ref’s job is to make sure I’m safe, and I get it. I have no qualms about that.”
Edgar said he was already apprehensive about having referee Todd Anderson oversee his fight. He didn’t have anything personal against the official, but he did have a problem with how the pre-fight instructions were given.
“I knew the ref’s gonna be a problem from the f—ng jump because, in the locker room, he’d given us the 12th degree on the rules. I said to Mark, I’m like, ‘Bro, what the f—k. He’s giving me every f—ng rule,’” Edgar recalled.
“I was at the tip of my tongue in the back, I was like, ‘You know it’s, like, my 30th fight in the UFC?’ I’ve never seen him before. I think he was a New York ref, not a guy who travels with the UFC. So, whatever.
“It kills me ‘cause if you look at the two fights before me, they let those guys fight ’til f—ng they almost died. I literally got hit with the shot, my hand hit the mat. My head never even touched the f—ng mat.
“(Vera) pushed the back of my head (towards the mat) and made it look a little worse than it was, I think. ‘Cause, when the ref stopped it, I looked up and I’m like, ‘Dude! No!’ I said ‘No! What are you doing!?’ He said, ‘Oh, it was a good stoppage.’
“But alright, it’s in the past, it happened, I lost. It is what it is.”
Anderson has been taking some heat for his officiating over the past years. UFC president Dana White also had his issues with the referee for his handling of the Holly Holm-Germaine de Randamie fight at UFC 208 in 2017.
As for Edgar, he is now dealing with a two-fight losing streak as he drops to a record of 24-10-1.