The typically cool, calm and collected Frankie Edgar has lost his patience.
‘The Answer’ was one of the first people contacted by the UFC after Rafael dos Anjos withdrew from the main event of UFC 196 with a foot injury.
The promotion had identified Edgar and former UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo as their preferred replacement candidates to take on Conor McGregor on eleven days’ notice but Edgar couldn’t seriously consider the offer due to a torn groin.
“I got a call from Ali [Abdelaziz] saying that Rafael Dos Anjos got hurt, and [the UFC] had texted him, ‘will Frankie fight him at 155?’ And, I’ve been hurt for the past four weeks,” Edgar told MMA Fighting.
“I’m pissed off for a couple of reasons. I’m pissed off that I’ve got this opportunity slip through again. I’m sitting here, I’m the one who’s been trying to fight this guy for months now. I’m flying myself to Vegas on my own dime to lobby to get a fight with this guy and now here comes the opportunity, and I’m hurt and I can’t take it.
“I haven’t done anything in four weeks. I didn’t just pull my groin, I tore it. I sent Dana and everyone in the UFC my MRI.”
Dana White revealed on Sportscenter on Tuesday night that Nate Diaz would be the man to take on ‘The Notorious’ at UFC 196 in a bout contested at welterweight, explaining that Aldo and Edgar rebuffed his approaches.
And Edgar is furious with White at the suggestion that he turned down the fight as that would lead one to believe that he had a say in the matter when, in reality, the injury made the bout an impossibility.
“I’m even more pissed that Dana’s insinuating that I ‘refused’ to take this fight, which is bullshit,” he added.
“Just because they asked me doesn’t mean they were going to give it to me because guess what, in July they asked me to take the [UFC 189] fight on 15 day’s notice, which of course I accepted, and I still didn’t get it.
“I have a feeling that if I had said ‘yes,’ if Ali had texted back ‘yes,’ that fight still would have went to Nate Diaz. I think Nate Diaz was the fight they were trying to make since the beginning. From what I hear they contacted Nate even before they contacted me.
“But now Dana wants to go around saying that I ‘refused ‘to take this fight, and I don’t know if he’s going to try to use it against me in the future when another opportunity comes up where I can fight for the belt, and he’s going to say, ‘well, you had your opportunity and you said no.’”
