Frankie Edgar to 135? Former 155 champ would rather retire after UFC 162 win

Nearly the entire time Frankie Edgar was the UFC’s lightweight champion, his boss was dropping hints left and right.

UFC President Dana White wanted Edgar to drop down to featherweight since he was an undersized lightweight. But there obviously was a problem with that – Edgar kept winning.

But after back-to-back losses to Benson Henderson, the first surrendering his 155-pound title, and the second, in a rematch, unable to reclaim it, Edgar finally answered the featherweight call.

The timing was right, and he got an immediate title shot against Jose Aldo. And he lost that fight, too, giving him three straight losses.

But Saturday, Edgar (16-4-1 MMA, 10-4-1 UFC) got the monkey off his back when he took a unanimous decision from submission specialist Charles Oliveira (16-4 MMA, 4-4 UFC) in the UFC 162 co-main event at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. It was Edgar’s first win at featherweight, which was important.

But even against the taller Oliveira, Edgar at times looked too small for the weight class, prompting White to bring up the talk of bantamweight – even jokingly – at the post-fight news conference.

“I think Frankie looked great tonight,” White said. “Of course, everyone was running over to me going, ‘He’s too small – he’s gotta go to 135.’ But he looked awesome tonight.”

Edgar endured years of White telling him to move down to featherweight. Faced with the prospect of hearing him talk now about dropping to 135 pounds, after just one win at 145, would be too much for the New Jersey native to bear.

“If I’ve got to hear Dana talk about 135, I don’t know – I’m retiring,” Edgar said.

But he knows one thing for sure – snapping that three-fight skid was one burden he was glad to have gone.

And having to only go 15 minutes after seven straight championship fights, six of which went the full 25 minutes, was another notch in his corner.

“A win feels good, anyway, but especially after three losses in a row,” he said. “Being that this is my first win at 145, (it feels) very good.”

Asked about standing to applaud after Edgar and Oliveira wrapped their “Fight of the Night”-winning 15 minutes, which got them each $50,000 bonus checks, White said it had nothing go do with seeing Edgar back in the win column and everything to do with seeing a great fight.

“I was cheering because it was an awesome fight,” he said. “Both guys fought hard, and they got $50,000. … Oliveira proved he’s a talent to be reckoned with. That kid’s just going to get better and better and better. It was a great fight – I loved it.”

For complete coverage of UFC 162, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.