Why UFC featherweight contender Frankie Edgar isn’t stressing about a title shot
An opportunity to fight for a championship can be a life-changing event for UFC fighters. It's why Georges St-Pierre once so famously dropped to his knees in the Octagon and pleaded with UFC management to give him a title shot.
Former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar knows full well its value, but he's not going to grovel for a chance at a title.
Edgar will meet Cub Swanson on Saturday in the main event of a card at the Erwin Center in Austin, Texas, but nothing is guaranteed for him, even with a win.
UFC president Dana White has promised Swanson a shot at featherweight champion Jose Aldo if he's victorious Saturday, but he has yet to extend the same courtesy to Edgar.
But instead of begging publicly, or venting to the media, the low-key Edgar will take the same approach that has worked so well for him as he's fashioned a 16-4-1 mark in his mixed martial arts career.
He plans to fight so hard, and make his bout so memorable, that he hopes White will have little choice but to give him another crack at the belt.
"If I keep on doing the right things, they can't keep refusing me," Edgar said. "I know that and they know that. I can take the decision out of their hands by going out there and winning and putting on the kind of fights people want to see.
"I don't think I need to create a lot of drama or put on a show in order to do it. Listen, they [UFC management] wants the best fights they can put together, so it all comes out the same way. Eventually, if you keep doing the right things, they won't have a choice but to pick you."
Edgar has long been one of the UFC's best and most exciting fighters. He's regularly engaged in some of the promotion's most memorable fights.
He gave Aldo one of the sternest tests of his long reign as featherweight champion, and some even thought Edgar deserved the win.
Edgar is coming off victories over Charles Oliveira and B.J. Penn and knows that a win over the red-hot Swanson would make his case for a crack at Aldo better than any words.
The featherweight division just might be the UFC's best, but it has begun to separate. Just a few weeks ago, there were oodles of fighters with clear claims at a title shot. But Chad Mendes was just beaten by Aldo, Dennis Bermudez was stopped by Ricardo Lamas and the result of the Edgar-Swanson fight will further clarify things.
The only other fighter seemingly in the running at this stage, other than Edgar and Swanson, might be rising star Conor McGregor, who is doing his best to talk his way in.
McGregor's ability to trash talk and sell his fights has vaulted him up the list of available contenders much more quickly than his performance otherwise might have merited.
It's irritated many of the veterans, who have toiled in relative anonymity without the perks that are so quickly going McGregor's way, but Edgar isn't one to worry about others.
"I don't get upset by that," Edgar said. "That's his approach and it's working for him. That's fine by me. The truth is, it might be helping the rest of us anyway because it's putting more of a spotlight on us."
The Edgar-Swanson fight figures to be one of the year's best, because both are excellent all-around fighters who love to stand and trade with each other.
The winner will emerge in excellent position, regardless of what White ultimately decides about the title shot. McGregor believes that if he's victorious over Dennis Siver on Jan. 18 in Boston, he'll be picked to fight Aldo.
All of the talking and jockeying is further evidence of the value of the title shot. When a fighter wins a championship, his income potential skyrockets exponentially.
Edgar held the lightweight belt for nearly two years and knows intimately the benefits of being a champion.
It's not wise, though, to obsess over something one can't control. Who meets Aldo next is ultimately up to White and UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, and while fighters can try to influence it by attracting attention in interviews or winning impressively, at the end of the day it's the UFC’s belt and it’ll choose the contender for its own reasons.
Edgar's approach is to not concern himself with anything but getting better.
"If you learn and improve and get better, nothing too bad can happen," he said. "So I just try to do my work and be the best I can be each day and I know that if I do that, good things will happen for me."
