Frankie Edgar remains retired after his return to combat sports was halted two weekends ago.
The former UFC lightweight champion was scheduled to make his bare-knuckle boxing debut against Jimmie Rivera at BKFC 82 in his home state of New Jersey on Oct. 4, however the fight dissolved just days before fight night after Edgar was pulled from the bout for undisclosed reasons.
Edgar, 43, gave his side of the story for the first time Tuesday. Speaking on his “Champ and the Tramp” podcast, Edgar vehemently pushed back on speculation that he wasn’t medically cleared to compete. The UFC Hall of Famer said issues first arose a week out from the fight when he received an email from a BKFC representative who informed him that “the owner of BKFC is leaving for Manchester and he doesnt have a phone on him,” and thus couldn’t speak, but that a doctor recommended to the promotion that Edgar not fight “based on my age, consecutive TKO losses, my layoff and my record.”
Edgar said the situation sounded “fugazi” because of the timing of the message the fight was signed months prior and Edgar’s MMA record is public knowledge and the conflicting results Edgar said he’d received from his own pre-fight medicals.
Uncrowned’s Ariel Helwani reported Tuesday on “The Ariel Helwani Show” that “a ticket-selling issue” with the BKFC 82 event was the primary cause of Edgar’s removal, rather than medical issues that once the company failed to sell a specific percentage of tickets for the Newark show, Edgar was given a percentage of his purse and removed from the card due to the show’s profits falling below expectations.
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Edgar expanded on the sentiment and issue a warning to future fighters competing with BKFC.
They didnt sell enough tickets and they figure lets get one of the highest-paid guys on the card and get him off the card, we dont have to pay him, Edgar said. Or they lost a sponsor. These are all speculations.
I thought I thought BKFC had something. I was like, ‘Wow, this is pretty entertaining. They got something.’ But not if they treat fighters like this. Because Ill tell you what: Fighters out there, beware.
The Rivera fight would have been Edgar’s first since his final UFC appearance in November 2022, which closed out his 15-year run with the promotion on a three-fight losing streak. Edgar said he was content with retirement and that BKFC approached him with multiple offers until the whole scenario aligned as a “perfect storm” to get him to come back. Fighting at home again, a new experience in a different combat sport it all sounded nice, so he agreed. Yet by the end of it, Edgar indicated that his experience with BKFC just made him feel as if he got the runaround at the expense of the fans in his home state.
Edgar has long been beloved as one of the most entertaining and durable UFC fighters of the past 20 years. His perpetual underdog status created a unique story in nearly every big fight, culminating with his massive upset title win over BJ Penn in 2010. He was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame last year.
Unfortunately, now for “The Answer,” he expects to be met with the lingering cloud of a misconception that he wasn’t medically cleared to compete and that a concerning issue prevented his return.
No matter what scenario went down, people are going to say, even still after this explanation, people are going to say, Yo, you werent fit to fight, Edgar said. Thats what theyre going to say. You were medically not fit to fight. Thats going to be the narrative.
Honestly, I dont really dont give a f*** because the people that I know, that know me, know I was ready to go. I passed every f***ing medical and, honestly, thinking about it now, I havent got any of these medicals since my fight. I just got a clean bill of health. Im good to go.