Frankie Edgar lands a punch on Pedro Munhoz during their main event fight in August 2020. Edgar won the fight by split decision. Photo Credit: MMA Fighting
First Fight View: Frankie Edgar’s bantamweight debut
Frankie Edgar began his career at 155-pounds in 2005. Five years later, and he was the best lightweight in the world. Since then, he’s spent most of his time inside the Octagon competing as a featherweight at 145-pounds. That changed this past Saturday night.
For Edgar, he was originally planning to make the drop-down sooner after losing his most recent title opportunity vs. Max Holloway. However, opponents fell out of multiple matchups and led him to step in to take on Chan Sung Jung first. Unfortunately for him, that didn’t go in “The Answer’s” favor.
At UFC Vegas 7 this past Saturday, welcoming Edgar to his new division would be the perennial top bantamweight contender, Pedro Munhoz.
Munhoz was also looking to rebound off of a rough loss and some extended time away from action. After a big 2019 that saw him knock out former champion Cody Garbrandt, Munhoz had his momentum halted by Aljamain Sterling a matter of months later.
The pair got their chances to rebound against one another, but only one could walk away victorious. That wound up being the former 155-pound champion in Frankie Edgar. Could this be the start of another run in a new division?
This is First Fight View with Drake Riggs. The video series where we go back and watch some of MMA’s most controversial decisions … for the very first time! I will be watching the fights in their entirety and providing commentary throughout as I score the rounds as they happen. And although the majority of these bouts will likely be under the old version of the unified rules of MMA, scores under both sets of the new and old will be tallied to maximize perspective. The global ruleset is also thrown in just for a little bit of extra fun.
Check it out in the full video above.
