While many want to see Conor McGregor get the next shot at Jose Aldo, Frankie Edgar’s camp believe that their fighter has proven himself to be the new #1 contender.
After finishing Cub Swanson on Saturday, Edgar’s coaches Mark Henry and Ricardo Almeida both say that Edgar’s performance in his first outing against Aldo (which ended with the champion retaining by decision) coupled with his win against Swanson, make him the obvious choice to fight for the title next.
“We do really well with rematches, and Frankie’s danced with him once,” Henry said on MMAjunkie Radio of Edgar’s first meeting with Aldo at UFC 156, which ended in a unanimous decision loss. “I’ve got so much confidence that it would be a totally different story the second Aldo fight, including, too, that nobody talks about it really – Frankie is the only one to outstrike Aldo (in the) third, fourth and fifth round. He outstruck him, bottom line.”
“I think that if we strictly go by the first fight between Frankie and Aldo, Frankie outstruck him three out of five rounds, and there was quite a few fighters that actually think Frankie won,” said Almeida. “There’s quite a few MMA analysts, knowledgeable people in the industry that thought when the (decision) was announced that Frankie was going to walk out the new featherweight champion. Of course, I’m biased from being in Frankie’s camp, but if we go by what happened, I think Frankie is deserving.
“When you have a fighter like McGregor with that much hype, it tends to allow the fighter to jump the line, but if you go by results alone and what Frankie has accomplished in the past, Frankie’s last fight with Aldo, without a doubt, I think he’s more qualified to be fighting for the world title than pretty much anyone else.”
