If all goes as planned, Frankie
Edgar could be the latest notable to call it quits from mixed
martial arts this year.
Advertisement
The former UFC lightweight champion told
ESPN that he plans to retire after one more Octagon appearance
in 2022. Ideally, that would be at Madison Square Garden in New
York. While the promotion hasn’t formally announced an event at the
celebrated venue, UFC 281 will reportedly take place at MSG on Nov.
12.
“I think that would be cool,” Edgar said. “It would be a pretty
cool sendoff at Madison Square Garden, it’s pretty much in my
backyard. I trained up in Renzo’s for so many years, it would be a
pretty cool sendoff.”
Edgar hasn’t competed since the promotion’s last trip to Madison
Square Garden, when he suffered a front kick KO loss to Marlon Vera
at UFC 268 last November. “The Answer” later
revealed that he underwent hip surgery several months prior to
that fight and had also been struggling with “nerve issues” in his
back.
He admitted he’s been thinking about the end of the line since the
loss to Vera. Edgar has lost four of his last five UFC appearances
overall — with with of those coming via knockout or technical
knockout.
“I’ve been kicking the idea of retirement around since my last
fight,” Edgar said. “The last two fights obviously didn’t go the
way I wanted them to. If I’m being honest, I would fight forever —
but that’s kind of selfish to my family and the people that care
about me. I need to announce my retirement so I can have a
retirement fight and sail off into the sunset.”
Edgar believes a “legacy fight” against former bantamweight
champion Dominick
Cruz would be the ideal way to go out.
“I’m never one to call out or pick anybody, I usually let the UFC
or [manager Ali Abdelaziz] figure that out,” Edgar said. “But I’ll
say a name, just because I think it’s more of a legacy fight. I
know he has a fight coming up and who knows how that could go down,
but Dominick
Cruz — he was a champion at 135 [pounds] when I was champion
at 155. We were both pretty much the top of the division. That
could be a fun fight.”
Though he has fallen on hard times of late, the 40-year-old Toms
River, N.J., native has enjoyed a decorated career within the Las
Vegas-based promotion. He claimed lightweight gold with an upset
victory over B.J. Penn at UFC
112 and defended the belt against Penn and Gray
Maynard before relinquishing the crown in a decision loss to
Benson
Henderson at UFC 144. Edgar later moved to 145 pounds and twice
challenged for titles there before finally dropping to
bantamweight, where he has posted a 1-2 mark since 2020. Edgar’s
ledger includes other notables wins against the likes of Pedro
Munhoz, Cub Swanson
(twice), Yair
Rodriguez, Jeremy
Stephens, Chad Mendes,
Urijah
Faber, Charles
Oliveira and Sean Sherk, to
name a few.