Last week, there was a tsunami that crashed through MMA media, all caused by a little blurb that Conor McGregor said in which most people didn’t even believe to be true. The word was that he offered to step in to fight Frankie Edgar at UFC 222. While all sites started rushing to get out their news, Edgar’s manager Ali Abdel-Aziz and coach Mark Henry were loading up more material. Aziz brought up an alleged request by McGregor for a new 165 title, which Artem Lobov seemed to just confirm.
“[We were] very close [to going to UFC 222 to fight Frankie Edgar for 165-pound ittle]. Very, very close. It was real, 100-percent. Conor was ready to go, that was it, we were gathering the troops already, we were ready to go. Were planning what we were going to do; we were just going to fly out to Vegas straightaway to do this short little camp.”
“It was real, 100 percent. Conor was ready to go, that was it.” –@RusHammerMMA on alleged 165-pound title fight between Conor McGregor and Frankie Edgar. Watch #TheMMAHour live: https://t.co/11sYrEm5Ug pic.twitter.com/myAgKBk1wD
— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) February 26, 2018
“Plans were in place and everything — every one was ready to go. Conor wanted to fight. I was talking to him the whole time and he was ready to go and show the world what he can do. To the best of my knowledge, I think this was UFC. The UFC weren’t really all for it because it was really short notice and it wouldn’t give enough time to kind of build the fight. So, from what I understood, that was the main reason for it.” — Artem Lobov speaking on The MMA Hour.
Now two sources have confirmed the request to start a new 165 division in which Frankie Edgar and Conor McGregor would have had a fight for the inaugural champion. It seems like McGregor had demands for a short notice fight and the UFC weren’t willing to give into them with only so much time to promote such a big spectacle. This has all come and gone now, so we’ll see if this new hypothetical title comes up again. After all, he’s supposedly being stripped before UFC 223.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 2/27/2018.