Frankie Edgar has been angling for a fight with Conor McGregor for some time, but so far, it hasn’t come to fruition. That being said, McGregor recently named Edgar as a potential opponent for his return to action.
“Who else is top of the list? Frankie Edgar is also up there on the list because he has similarities to Khabib,” McGregor said of Edgar in an interview with ESPN. “He runs on the back foot and shoots on the single leg. I want these sort of similar bouts. And also, Frankie has been very respectful. He’s always respectful. He said, ‘I want to tell my his grandkids I fought Conor McGregor’, one day.
“For me to hear that, ask Dana [White] — now this is going back many months now — I messaged Dana straight away and said, ‘That’s the fight to make’. Even though he lost to Max [Holloway] in a very close bout, I don’t care. Wins and losses don’t matter in this game. It’s the stories we are all on and the journeys we are all on.”
Frankie Edgar quickly responded to this comment from Conor McGregor, assuring he’s interested in this potential bout, despite his recent plans to move to bantamweight.
Speaking to TMZ more recently, Edgar divulged that he’d even be willing to meet McGregor in the welterweight division — a division he’s never fought in before.
“It gave me hope that maybe I can get a fight with him,” Edgar told TMZ (via MMA Junkie). “I’ve been trying to fight this guy for a really long time. I know he’s mentioned my name before, so who knows if it’s him throwing a lot of (expletive) on the wall and see if something sticks. But I’m game – he knows I’m game. I know I’m supposed to go down to bantamweight. Obviously (I) would delay that for the McGregor fight.
“I’ll fight wherever he wants to fight. We can do it at welterweight if he feels. He’s going to be bigger than me no matter where we fight at, so I’m game. I’ve kind of been trying to watch my weight a little bit now that bantamweight’s coming, but I wouldn’t mind pouring some pounds on now.”
Edgar continued:
“It’s no secret Conor is the biggest star in the sport, at least one of them, and with that comes a lot of attention,” he said. “He’s going to be remembered for sure 20 years from now, and I want to have that on my record.
“I’m game – any weight, any time. We can do it really anywhere. That’s a fight you get remembered for.”
Do you think we’ll see Frankie Edgar and Conor McGregor fight in the near future?
This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 9/2/2019.