Chad Mendes’ next opponent has recently been revealed and it’s a doozy as he takes on the inimitable challenge of Frankie Edgar but it seems that Money‘s mind is on another featherweight.
The Team Alpha Male stand-out has returned to his favourite topic of conversation as he blows on the embers of the McGregor fire in a bid to alight a rematch.
Mendes was finished in the second round of his first meeting with The Notorious when the pair met last month for the interim featherweight championship and Mendes believes that it was his lack of a full training camp that cost him that fight.
“That [the short notice] was 110% the factor in the loss in that fight,” Mendes told UFC Tonight. “I’ve seen him [McGregor] saying ‘it doesn’t matter if he had a short camp for this fight, it was the body kicks that slowed him down and stopped him,’ but none of those body kicks hurt at all.
“There wasn’t a time where any of those that landed where I was like ‘ow, my liver!’ There was no type of body pain for that. I know it, he knows it and everybody knows it.
“[If] I go out there with a full camp, I destroy that guy ten out of ten times.”
With talk of McGregor moving up to lightweight after he unifies the title in December, Money warns the Irishman that he better not switch divisions before Mendes gets the opportunity of a rematch.
“He better not try to ditch out after this fight whether he wins or loses and try to go up to 155 lbs or some stupid thing.
“I feel like he owes me a rematch with a full fight camp and let’s see if he’s man enough to do that.”
Both guys have fights coming up before any rematch can be discussed and, from the sounds of it, Mendes is happy that he doesn’t have the raucous Irish fight fans to deal with when he meets Frankie Edgar at The Ultimate Fighter 22 finale.
“I’m pretty pumped. That last fight was pretty insane. The crowd there was nuts. I felt like I had the whole country of Ireland there.
“There was a point where I was walking from the workout room to my room and I had a couple of drunk Irishmen following me, talking crap. It was crazy.”
