Former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar is not happy.
After UFC president Dana White came out Tuesday and claimed that Edgar turned down a bout with Conor McGregor for UFC 196, “The Answer” wants to come clean.
In an interview with MMAFighting.com, Edgar explained what happened and why he was unable to accept the fight, adding that he is “even more pissed that Dana’s insinuating that I ‘refused’ to take this fight, which is bullshit.”
“I got a call from Ali (Abdel-Aziz, his manager) saying that Rafael dos Anjos got hurt, and (the UFC) had texted him, ‘will Frankie fight him at 155?’ And, I’ve been hurt for the past four weeks,” Edgar said. “I’m pissed off for a couple of reasons. I’m pissed off that I’ve got this opportunity slip through again. I’m sitting here, I’m the one who’s been trying to fight this guy for months now. I’m flying myself to Vegas on my own dime to lobby to get a fight with this guy and now here comes the opportunity, and I’m hurt and I can’t take it. I haven’t done anything in four weeks. I didn’t just pull my groin, I tore it. I sent Dana and everyone in the UFC my MRI.”
Edgar, who is coming off a first round victory over Chad Mendes, stated that he was offered a fight at UFC 189 on 15 days notice that he accepted, but “still didn’t get.”
“I have a feeling that if I had said ‘yes,’ that fight still would have went to Nate Diaz,” he said. “I think Nate Diaz was the fight they were trying to make since the beginning. Now Dana wants to go around saying that I ‘refused’ to take this fight and I don’t know if he’s going to try to use it against me in the future.”
