UFC bantamweight contender Frankie Edgar believes that the referee stopped his fight too early against Marlon Vera at UFC 268.

Edgar suffered a brutal third-round knockout loss when Vera connected on a brutal front kick to the jaw that sat Edgar down to the mat. However, when speaking on the Champ and The Tramp podcast, Edgar admitted that he feels referee Todd Anderson stopped the fight too early. As far as Edgar goes, he was still in the fight, and when he looks at some of the other fights at UFC 268 that weren’t stopped, he was unhappy the referee did so.

“I lost the fight, that’s done. I’m proud of my performance, I’m proud of my team, I’m proud of the way I prepare to do everything the right way. I was 100 percent ready for the fight. I felt like I was doing well in the fight, first round especially. Second round was a little bit closer. Third round I thought I was really doing well too, I started picking up the pace, landing a lot of punches, obviously got hit with that upkick. I wish the ref let it go a little bit longer. Do I think it was an early stoppage? A little bit. Obviously, the ref’s job is to make sure I’m safe and I get it, I have no qualms about that,” Edgar said (via MMAFighting.com).

“It just kills me because if you look at the two fights before me, they let those guys fight until they almost died. I literally got hit with a shot, my hand hit the mat, my head never even touched the f*cking mat. (Vera) pushed the back of my head, and it made it look worse than it was I think because when the ref stopped it, I looked up and I’m like, ‘Dude, no!’ I said, ‘No, what are you doing?’ He’s like, ‘It’s a good stop, it’s a good stop.’ Alright, that’s in the past. It happened. I lost.”

Do you agree with Frankie Edgar that the referee stopped the Marlon Vera fight at UFC 268 too early?