Frankie Edgar

Talk about Conor McGregor and Frankie Edgar fighting has been making the rounds again. But, according to the latter’s striking coach, Mark Henry, McGregor had several opportunities to face Edgar before.

McGregor’s recent comments about Edgar

During a recent interview with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, (which was set up following the news of McGregor’s latest incident), the former featherweight and lightweight champ was asked about who he wants to fight next. McGregor made it clear he hopes to challenge for the lightweight title, but, if that doesn’t happen, he’s open to fighting several different, big name fighters. One of the people McGregor mentioned was Edgar, and since then, the New Jersey fighter reported he’s on board.

Henry says Edgar – McGregor was tabled before

Well, since all this went down, the aforementioned Henry appeared on the Eurobash podcast.  Not surprisingly, Henry was asked about the back-and-forth with Edgar and McGregor, and here’s some of what he had to say (quotes via MMA Fighting).

“He didn’t want to fight Frankie before and he had opportunities too,” Henry said.

“It’s like he didn’t want to fight him, he had a couple of chances. [When Jose Aldo was forced out of UFC 189] he knew Mendes wasn’t in a camp, that he was filming a hunting show and he hadn’t trained in a long time. He knows that Frankie trains all year round and it would’ve been perfect timing. Mendes had just lost the fight before to Aldo. That week, Frankie was ranked ahead of Chad too and they switched it fast after Chad got the fight…Frankie was ranked ahead of him, he had more wins than him. Chad had just lost within two fights prior to the title fight.”

“When he had the opportunity to fight Frankie again he turned it down…When Chad and Frankie fought each other, [McGregor] said that Frankie would lose and if Frankie does beat [Mendes], [McGregor] would fight him, which then happened too, and then he didn’t fight Frankie again after that. There have been a lot of excuses, but all in all, he’s bashed other people and he’s seems to have been pretty respectful to Frankie. And Frankie’s been pretty respectful to him, like he has been to everybody.”

Of course, McGregor and his camp would likely have a different take on all this, but it’s interesting to hear nonetheless. It does seem like McGregor has typically been more respectful toward Edgar over the years, in comparison to other fighters.

But, as I’ve noted recently, it just doesn’t seem like this fight’s in the cards right now. Edgar recently announced he wants to drop to 135, and there are other match-ups for McGregor that make more sense.  Like, for example, having him face the winner of the September 14th bout between Justin Gaethje and Donald Cerrone.

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