Saturday night at UFC 162, Frankie Edgar’s string of fighting in seven consecutive main event, UFC championship matches came to an end, but another streak continued.
For the fourth straight fight, the former lightweight champion went to the scorecards, earning a unanimous decision victory over Charles Oliveira to bring his three-fight losing streak to an end. Over his last 13 outings, Edgar has waited to hear the results announced by Bruce Buffer 11 times, and in six of those outings, the outcome was in question.
While that wasn’t the case on Saturday night, Edgar didn’t escape unscathed either. Though Oliveira was on the wrong side of a clear decision, the young Brazilian prospect had his moments, catching “The Answer” at a few different points, forcing him to retreat out of his stick-and-move approach on more than one occasion.
In previous outings, you could chalk up the fact that Edgar continually found himself in close fights that rested in the hands of the judges on his competition; after all, he fought the best of the best between two divisions over the last three years.
But Oliveira doesn’t fit that description.
He’s a talented emerging fighter who acquitted himself well under the Saturday night’s spotlight, but a world championship contender he’s not; at least not yet. Prior to sharing the cage with Edgar at UFC 162, “Do Bronx” was dropped by a delayed two-piece combo from Cub Swanson, who blasted him to the body before cracking him with a left up top that forced Oliveira to crumble to the canvas in pain.
In fact, each of his three previous UFC losses had all come by way of stoppage, yet despite landing some crisp, clean strikes throughout the three-round affair, Edgar never managed to truly come close to putting his opponent away.
This is a problem that is going to continue to plague Edgar going forward, and something that is going to shape each and every fight he’s in, just as it has the majority of his recent outings.
Close fights are going to follow Edgar wherever he goes, and against whomever he faces.
With each passing decision, his knockout win over Gray Maynard in their third career encounter becomes more and more of an anomaly; an outlier amongst fights that have gone the distance. As tremendously clean as his technique is – and it really is beautiful to watch him operate – his lack of truly fight-changing power is going to leave Edgar in a position where he not only needs to pile up the points, but also be diligent in defence. The ebb and flow of his fight with Oliveira this past weekend is a perfect example of this.
Every time Edgar appeared to have the energetic Brazilian in trouble, Oliveira was able to avoid getting put away, and fire back in kind. In some of those instances, he stung Edgar to the point that it appeared as if momentum had completely shifted. While there was no question that the former champion was getting the better of the exchanges on the whole and would come away with the win he desperately needed, all I could think as I watched the fight was “this is just how Frankie Edgar fights go.”
To me, Edgar is the embodiment of how close things are in the upper echelon of these divisions. A couple strikes or takedowns are all that separates champion from challenger, a win from a loss, and for a guy like Edgar who is doesn’t have one-punch power, that means every fight could come down to how the officials scoring the fight at cageside see the action.
And make no mistake about it – Edgar’s fights are going to continue going the distance from this point forward. I don’t say that as a knock on “The Pride of Toms River, New Jersey” either; it’s just the reality that comes part and parcel with his particular skill set and style of fighting.
One thing I do find strange, however, is how Edgar seemingly escapes criticism for almost always going the distance, even when those he’s shared the cage with in the past have become prime targets?
Benson Henderson catches plenty of heat for — and I’m paraphrasing here — “always being in these super-close, split decision fights,” and yet Edgar avoids fan ire despite being on the other side of the cage for two of Henderson’s three close contests in the UFC.
Georges St-Pierre gets dogged for winning dominant, one-sided decisions against the best the welterweight division has to offer fight after fight, and has been a favourite target of frustrated fans for quite some time. But when Edgar finds himself waiting for the scores to be read aloud each time he steps into the cage, he seems to get a pass.
No one seems to be questioning Edgar’s inability to put Oliveira away despite what appeared to be a few instances where the Brazilian was clearly hurt on Saturday night. If it were Henderson or St-Pierre in a similar position, comments sections and social media would be flooded with complaints.
Maybe Edgar escapes scorn because his fights always seem to feature the same kind of ebb and flow that we saw this past weekend; maybe he’s just so beloved that he can do no wrong.
Whatever it is, don’t expect it to change any time soon because wherever the former lightweight champion goes, a close, entertaining fight will follow.