Frankie Edgar’s bad news for Conor McGregor, according to bantamweight king Dominick Cruz.
The Dominator spoke about the landscape of the 145 division at a recent media day for UFC 199.
He feels that McGregor fighting Nate Diaz again at welterweight in UFC 200’s headliner while Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar slug it out for the interim featherweight title on the same card just allows the Notorious the opportunity to wheel out excuses if he loses again, as The Daily Star reports.
“Conor’s going up to fight Diaz at 170 again, leaving the featherweight belt for Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar to fight for. Okay, what if Conor McGregor goes back down and fights Frankie Edgar at 145lbs? Which is an extremely terrible style match-up and a hard fight and then he loses?”
Cruz seems to be in agreement with his fellow analyst Brian Stann, who believes that a Diaz rematch is less of a risk than a scrap against Edgar, who many feel possesses the requisite skills to give McGregor his toughest test at featherweight.
“Now he’s lost all his push, whereas if he stays at 170, fights Diaz and he happens to lose again, he still has it because he’s like; ‘Well, but it was at 170′. So there’s still excuses to make for it, to say why he’s the best. If he loses to Frankie Edgar at 145, you pretty much kill the excuses. It doesn’t necessarily take away legitimacy but it buys time.”
The Dominator is set to defend his belt against Urijah Faber at UFC 199 on June 4, which will complete a trilogy of fights between the two fighters. The California Kid’s win over Cruz to claim the WEC featherweight title in 2007 remains the only loss on Cruz’s professional record.
Cruz got his payback four years later though, defeating Faber via unanimous decision at UFC 132 to defend his bantamweight strap.
