Frankie Edgar Reveals Why His BKFC Fight Was Really Canceled
Former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar was set to come out of retirement to compete in his home state of New Jersey last weekend at BKFC 82. Just days prior to his bare knuckle fighting debut, “The Answer” was left searching for answers as he was pulled from the fight card in Newark.
Edgar has since broken his silence and issues a stern warning to other competitors who might be doing business the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship promotion.
“I 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’t have a phone on him,” Edgar said. “He can’t call you, but he’ll call you eventually. But in the meantime, his doctor recommended I don’t fight based on my age, consecutive TKO losses, my layoff, and my record, which sounds fugazi. That was before he’d 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.
“Obviously, 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.”
While speaking on the Champ and the Tramp Podcast, Edgar addressed the situation.
Edgar was originally scheduled to face fellow New Jersey and UFC native Jimmie Rivera on the BKFC 82 card. During fight week it was announced that “The Answer” had been replaced by Timothy Mason.
BKFC President David Feldman issued a statement ahead of the contest.
“After further review with our medical officer, we decided that Frankie Edgar was not going to compete this Saturday,” Feldman said. “We’re going to look into it and see what his future looks like, but he will not be competing this Saturday.”
In the podcast, Edgar went on to further explain the situation.
“I got a physical, I got a blood test, I got an eye exam,” Edgar said. “Then 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.
“The promotion was trying to say they weren’t 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’m talking to someone from the commission, he’s like, ‘We don’t have your medicals. What do you mean you can’t fight; we don’t have your medicals.’ … So, I gathered all my medicals, and I gave it to them and actually I got a call from someone there, they said, ‘I had the doctor from the commission look at your medicals and you look f*cking fantastic.’ That’s what he said to me. This is recently; this is after the fact I wasn’t fighting. He’s like, ‘Your MRI hasn’t changed since 2021. You have no white brain matter,’ that’s what they look for, I guess that signifies damage and whatnot. He said, ‘You have none of that.’ He even said, ‘I don’t know if you’re planning on doing anything, but you can tell your wife and family you’ve got a clean bill of health if you chose to fight more.’”
After it was originally announced that Edgar would be competing on the fight card in Newark, fans and media started to question whether it was a good idea or not.
“I was not thinking about fighting,” Edgar said. “They (BKFC) 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, ‘No.’ I said, ‘No.’ They came back and gave me the number that I would do it for, which was a very significant amount of money. That’s the only f*cking reason I got off the couch.
“Granted, once you woke up the beast, that’s all I wanted to do was fight. It wasn’t about the money. I wanted to fight, but I’m not going to do it for nothing either.”
Edgar states that he did everything the BKFC promotion asked him to do ahead of the event, but then they kind of ghosted him and left him in the dark.
“I don’t know what BKFC is going to do, but this ain’t a good look,” Edgar said. “I want to be more mad and more pissed off about it, but I just can’t let it consume me that much, but you guys dogged me in my home-f*cking-state. That’s crazy. That’s f*cked up if you think about it. They came to me. I did everything they wanted, too, by the way.
“I 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’ve been doing everything for them, so that’s f*cked.”
Now, because of the incident, Frankie Edgar doesn’t know what to believe and has issued a stern warning to fighters.
“They didn’t sell enough tickets and they figure let’s get one of the highest-paid guys on the card and get him off the card, we don’t have to pay him,” Edgar said. “Or they lost a sponsor. These are all speculations.”
“I thought BKFC had something,” Edgar added. “I was like, wow, this is pretty entertaining. They got something. But not if they treat fighters like this. Because I’ll tell you what, fighters out there, beware.”
