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Frankie Edgar is fast becoming the Rodney Dangerfield of UFC champions. At this point, it’s hard to know what more the guy could possibly do to earn our respect.
Edgar’s bout with challenger Gray Maynard on Saturday night at UFC 125 will mark the third straight title fight he’s entered as the betting underdog. After back-to-back wins over BJ Penn during 2010, most analysts have awarded Edgar the No. 1 spot in their 155-pound rankings, but you kind of get the feeling they’ve done so begrudgingly. When many writers and even fans talk about Edgar, it’s easy to detect an undercurrent of contempt. For some reason, we have a hard time conceding that this guy really is that good and many look upon Edgar’s position atop the lightweight class as merely transitory.
Honestly, it’s hard to put a finger on exactly why that is. Some of it certainly has to do with the weight division itself, which is unilaterally regarded as the most treacherous stretch of real estate in all of MMA. You can't throw a punch at 155-pounds without hitting three or four guys who are legitimate contenders for the belt. Challengers for the title are currently stacked pretty deep and things are only going to get worse in 2011, when the fighters of the WEC are officially folded into the mix. Without the kind of international reputation that Penn had before becoming lightweight champ, maybe it's just that a relative unknown like Edgar doesn’t seem capable of ruling such a dangerous roost for long.
Then there’s the New Jersey native himself. Edgar is a little on the small side, even for a lightweight. All things being equal he’d probably be a featherweight, but chose the higher profile and higher paydays of the 155-pounds back when the lighter weight classes were still remanded to the WEC. He’s also something of an unassuming champion. Edgar is humble and likable. Put simply he’s a nice guy – without the trash-talking bravado of his immediate predecessor – and nice guys often finish last when it comes to drawing a pay-per-view audience.
Lastly, maybe we just don't like the way he fights. Like Winky Wright in boxing for so many years, Edgar possess a unique and defensive striking style that is maddeningly effective yet rarely serves up the kind of knockouts fans crave. What he does do is frustrate his opponents with his speed and elusiveness. Edgar makes people look bad, a fact clearly on display during his back-to-back unanimous decisions over Penn. He just seems like the kind of guy other fighters aren’t particularly excited to fight, fans aren’t particularly excited to watch and writers aren’t particularly excited to lionize.
Yet you can’t argue with the results. To date, Edgar has amassed a record of 13-1, including five straight wins and a handful of victories over lightweight luminaries like Penn, Sean Sherk, Hermes Franca, Tyson Griffin and Jim Miller. That lone loss was to Maynard in April of 2008, hence the champ’s underdog status for this coming weekend.
Maynard is being cast (quite rightly) as a particularly difficult matchup for Edgar. Still undefeated, the Xtreme Couture product’s size, strength and wrestling ability will pose a drastically different and dangerous matchup of styles. If Edgar can avoid the takedown – a very big if – you have to like his chances to win this fight on the feet with his unorthodox striking. If he can’t, then the bigger fighter will likely be able to grind out his eighth straight decision victory.
I’ll tell you one thing, though: If Frankie Edgar is still the lightweight champion come Monday morning, it’d be nice if we could find it in our hearts to give the guy the respect he deserves.
Chad Dundas writes about MMA for CraveOnline, CagePotato.com and Versus.com. He lives in Missoula, MT.
