All the wins in the world couldn’t earn Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) featherweight contender Frankie Edgar a title shot in the 145-pound division.
Not when you have Conor McGregor calling the shots.
The current featherweight champion is on his way up to the lightweight class for a fight with 155-pound king Rafael dos Anjos at the UFC 197 pay-per-view (PPV) on March 5, 2016 and although he now must wait for said bout to transpire, “The Answer” will cheer on his friend “RDA” in Las Vegas.
“I’m buddies with Rafael and I’m not one to throw daggers at anybody and wish anyone bad. I think he’s a very tough fight for Conor, he has all the skills to beat him,” Edgar told FOX Sports. “Anyone can win in this game, but I do think dos Anjos has the skills and the size and everything to have his way with Conor.”
Edgar shares the same manager with dos Anjos, Ali Abdel-Aziz, and the Brazilian is coming off a 66-second drubbing of two-time adversary Donald Cerrone at UFC on FOX 17 last month. The Kings MMA product has been unstoppable of late and is riding a five-fight win streak with three total finishes during that span.
However, it does come at the expense of Edgar’s own title shot hopes, which were gashed by “Notorious” in his efforts to become the first UFC fighter to hold two belts simultaneously.
McGregor earned his first UFC strap by clocking and dropping ex-pound-for-pound star Jose Aldo in 13 seconds just over one month ago, before he was given the green light to move on up to the lightweight division.
The way Edgar sees it is it just gives him some extra hardware to collect off the shoulders of The Dubliner when they eventually tangle later this year.
“It gives a bigger aura to Conor and his image and what he’s done and it definitely makes it a bigger fight,” Edgar said. “We can do it back-to-back and that will be UFC 204 or whatever, that would be the next biggest fight. I’m hoping I get to fight on the biggest card in UFC history and make history by winning two titles.”
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