If Frankie Edgar had his way, he would have made his return to fighting in his hometown this month.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t to be, and Edgar blames BKFC for his bout with Jimmie Rivera being cancelled.<\/p>\n
Edgar, a former UFC lightweight champion and longtime featherweight contender, was to face his fellow octagon veteran Jimmie Rivera at BKFC 82 in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 4. However, just days before fight night, BKFC President David Feldman announced Edgar was pulled from the card due to medical issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n Feldman later told MMA Fighting Edgar was still compensated for the bout despite not fighting<\/a>, which Edgar has confirmed. However, that doesn\u2019t mean Edgar is happy with the situation and he shared his side of the story on his Champ and The Tramp<\/a> podcast.<\/p>\n \u201cI was training for six, seven weeks, I got a week out from the fight and we get an e-mail, my manager gets an e-mail from someone from BKFC stating that the owner of BKFC is leaving for Manchester and he doesn\u2019t have a phone on him,\u201d Edgar said. \u201cHe can\u2019t call you, but he\u2019ll call you eventually. But in the meantime, his doctor recommended I don\u2019t fight based on my age, consecutive TKO losses, my layoff, and my record, which sounds fugazi. That was before he\u2019d even seen my medicals, this doctor, or anything, which is kind of crazy, and the fact that he set me up a week before the fight.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, we signed a deal months ago. So all those facts were known much before we signed that deal, not to mention that I passed every single one of my medicals. I did a whole shit-ton of medicals.\u201d<\/p>\n BKFC 82 was to mark Edgar\u2019s first fight since retiring from the UFC in November 2022 following a first-round knockout loss to Chris Gutierrez, his third straight defeat via KO\/TKO. Despite concerns around the 43-year-old\u2019s health, Edgar insists he went through a thorough series of medical checks ahead of what was to be his bare-knuckle boxing debut.<\/p>\n Edgar claims that even though he sent the results of his medical tests to BKFC, they never made it to the commission.<\/p>\n \u201cI got a physical, I got a blood test, I got an eye exam,\u201d Edgar said. \u201cThen I had to go to three different heart things. I went to a stress test, an echo test, and a carotid test. Three different appointments. Then I also went to a neurologist. I got an MRI and an MRA. Every single doctor said my stuff was great. Eye doctor as well.<\/p>\n \u201cThe promotion was trying to say they weren\u2019t getting my medicals, which is bullshit, they got all medicals. Now, they did not send my medicals to the commission at all. At all. I\u2019m talking to someone from the commission, he\u2019s like, \u2018We don\u2019t have your medicals. What do you mean you can\u2019t fight, we don\u2019t have your medicals.\u2019 \u2026 So I gathered all my medicals and I gave it to them and actually I got a call from someone there, they said, \u2018I had the doctor from the commission look at your medicals and you look f*cking fantastic.\u2019 That\u2019s what he said to me. This is recently, this is after the fact I wasn\u2019t fighting. He\u2019s like, \u2018Your MRI hasn\u2019t changed since 2021. You have no white brain matter,\u2019 that\u2019s what they look for, I guess that signifies damage and whatnot. He said, \u2018You have none of that.\u2019 He even said, \u2018I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re planning on doing anything, but you can tell your wife and family you\u2019ve got a clean bill of health if you chose to fight more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Having the chance to fight in New Jersey and guaranteed a healthy pay day, Edgar calls the BKFC opportunity the \u201cperfect storm\u201d to get him to come out of retirement. Adding to his aggravation with the situation is that it was not his plan to fight again and that BKFC came to him with multiple offers before he agreed to sign on, only for the fight to fail to come to fruition.<\/p>\n \u201cI was not thinking about fighting,\u201d Edgar said. \u201cThey came to me, I ignored them once. Then they come to me again. Then [my manager and BKFC] come up with a deal. He gave me a number. It was a f*cking pretty high number. I said, \u2018No.\u2019 I said, \u2018No.\u2019 They came back and gave me the number that I would do it for, which was a very significant amount of money. That\u2019s the only f*cking reason I got off the couch.<\/p>\n \u201cGranted, once you woke up the beast, that\u2019s all I wanted to do was fight. It wasn\u2019t about the money. I wanted to fight, but I\u2019m not going to do it for nothing either.\u201d<\/p>\n Not only did Edgar have to take time away from friends and family to put together a proper training camp, he also took part in numerous promotional appearances for BKFC 82. The experience left him feeling like the promotion may have used his name just to sell tickets to the event knowing full well that he might not be competing.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what BKFC is going to do, but this ain\u2019t a good look,\u201d Edgar said. \u201cI want to be more mad and more pissed off about it, but I just can\u2019t let it consume me that much, but you guys dogged me in my home-f*cking-state. That\u2019s crazy. That\u2019s f*cked up if you think about it. They came to me. I did everything they wanted, too, by the way.<\/p>\n \u201cI went to every f*cking promotion. I hosted a f*cking watch party. I went to the Devils game. I did f*cking podcast after podcast promoting the fight. So I\u2019ve been doing everything for them, so that\u2019s f*cked.\u201d<\/p>\n Edgar went further with his accusation, claiming BKFC wanted him to get his medicals done in New York instead of New Jersey. He admits to ignoring that instruction, but only because he considered the possibility that the promotion might be seeking a second opinion that was more to its benefit.<\/p>\n \u201cI never even went to that appointment because it was bullshit,\u201d Edgar said. \u201cI think their doctor wanted to see me so they could tell me I wasn\u2019t fit to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n The debacle has left Edgar with few concrete answers, but he\u2019s wondering if there were financial reasons to keep him off the card.<\/p>\n \u201cThey didn\u2019t sell enough tickets and they figure let\u2019s get one of the highest-paid guys on the card and get him off the card, we don\u2019t have to pay him,\u201d Edgar said. \u201cOr they lost a sponsor. These are all speculations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought I thought BKFC had something,\u201d Edgar added. \u201cI was like, wow, this is pretty entertaining. They got something. But not if they treat fighters like this. Because I\u2019ll tell you what, fighters out there, beware.\u201d<\/p>\n Edgar does not plan to sue BKFC for his whole purse as he isn\u2019t interested in going toe-to-toe with Feldman and crew in court. Besides, he believes he might have been paid more not to fight than most of the boxers who competed at BKFC 82, which only makes the situation stranger in his eyes.<\/p>\n Most frustrating of all for Edgar is that BKFC\u2019s handling of the situation makes it seem like he is unwilling or unable to fight. Edgar wants it to be clear not only was he ready to step into the bare-knuckle ring, but as far as he knows, there is nothing stopping him from fighting again should another lucrative opportunity come along.<\/p>\n \u201cNo matter what scenario went down, people are going to say, even still after this explanation, people are going to say, \u2018Yo, you weren\u2019t fit to fight,\u2019\u201d Edgar said. \u201cThat\u2019s what they\u2019re going to say. \u2018You were medically not fit to fight.\u2019 That\u2019s going to be the narrative.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t really don\u2019t give a f*ck because the people that I know that know me know I was ready to go. I passed every f*cking medical and, honestly, thinking about it now, I haven\u2019t got any of these medicals since my fight. I just got a clean bill of health. I\u2019m good to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Frankie Edgar had his way, he would have made his return to fighting in his hometown this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[33307,42718,49,48,701,82,640,702],"class_list":["post-213088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-bkfc","tag-bkfc-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-latest-news","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}