You may not have seen it during the broadcast, but Frankie Edgar was stopped from entering the Octagon after Conor McGregor knocked out Jose Aldo at UFC 194.
The former lightweight champion and number one featherweight contender revealed his frustatration at being perpetually snubbed for title shots by the UFC.
“I don’t know, man. I’m like in limbo here. I was promised that I get whatever I want one night, the next night saying ‘Conor gets whatever he wants.”
The Answer admitted he was perplexed that he was granted one after his stunning submission victory over Cub Swanson in November 2014. Swanson was riding a six-fight win streak at the time and was promised the next crack at Jose Aldo’s belt if he won, but Edgar wasn’t rewarded with a title shot for the win.
“For sure I’m pissed. I’ve been at this for a while. I’ve been knocking on the door of this title shot for a while. It started with Cub (Swanson). If he beat me me, he was promised a title shot. I beat him in pretty dominant fashion and I’m not even considered for that title shot.”
Edgar has always strayed away from trash-talking and speaking out against the promotion, but he explained that he is growing frustrated about constantly missing out on title shots.
“I take it in my stride, I’m a company man, but it’s not really panning out for me that way.”
“I’m not one to sit and cry about it. It’s funny, my whole career I’ve been super quiet, or as of recent, ‘you’re too quiet, you need to say stuff bla bla bla.’ Then you say something, ‘oh you’re fucking crying bla bla bla.’ You just can’t win with these people. The people you have to talk to is Dana (White) and Lorenzo (Fertitta) and it seems like they’re not listening either.”
Edgar took just 2:28 minutes to knock out Chad Mendes at the TUF finale, but attended UFC 194 the following night. He recounted an odd anecdote from that night in which he thought the UFC wanted to bring him into the cage after McGregor defeated Aldo, before they stopped him in his tracks as he walked towards the Octagon door.
“The night of Conor’s fight (against Jose Aldo) I talked to Dana a little bit. I walked up to the cage and someone grabbed me, one was Ali (Abdelaziz ) and the other was Lorenzo’s assistant. So I thought they wanted me to go into the cage. As I’m going to the cage, Dana grabbed me and was like Conor’s going up, we don’t know what he’s doing, we might give Aldo a rematch, we don’t know.”
Edgar closed off this piece by saying he wasn’t embarrassed by the incident because nobody saw, but he is embarrassed about not getting a title shot.
