Frankie Edgar wants to fight the best – and that's currently new champ Max Holloway

Outside of Max Holloway, the biggest winner from Saturday’s UFC 212 main event was likely featherweight contender Frankie Edgar.

Edgar (22-5-1 MMA, 16-5-1 UFC) has suffered two losses to former champion Jose Aldo, and while competitive, there’s little interest among fans for a third fight. “The Answer” has never shared the octagon with Holloway (18-3 MMA, 14-3 UFC), though, and after the Hawaiian unified the 145-pound title by defeating Aldo via third-round TKO at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, the landscape shifted.

Edgar has publicly campaigned for title shot in the recent past, but to no avail. He seems like the most logical contender for Holloway following a dominant second-round TKO of Yair Rodriguez at UFC 211 in May, but Edgar said he’s not going to beg.

“I’ve been trying to get this title shot for so long,” Edgar said while in Rio for UFC 212. “Sometimes things are out of my hands. Sometimes I drop the ball in a fight and didn’t get it. Right now I need to worry about things I can do and not what everybody else is doing.”

Edgar is a former UFC lightweight champion who first captured the gold from another Hawaiian in B.J. Penn at UFC 112 in April 2010. He eventually lost the crown and dropped down to featherweight, where he’s established himself as one of the best to ever compete in the weight class.

Becoming a champion in two different weight classes has been a longtime goal for Edgar, but one that he’s yet to materialize. The idea of a drop down to the bantamweight division has been proposed in the past, and while noncommittal, Edgar has been somewhat receptive.

Ultimately for Edgar it comes down to fighting the best competition available. He’s fought many of the sport’s biggest names throughout his career and wants that to continue going forward. It just so happens he hasn’t fought Holloway, and the fact “Blessed” now holds the title makes a potentially fresh matchup between the two even sweeter.

“I’ve been fighting the best guys since I got here, and that’s what I want to do,” Edgar said. “I want to look back on my career and say I fought the absolute best from every division that I could. I don’t want to lose sight on 145 just yet.

“I feel like if I go down to 135, people will just tell me to go to 125. It never ends with me. If the right opportunity arises with the right timing, I don’t know what will happen, but it would be tough to turn down the right opportunity.”

For complete coverage of UFC 212, check out the UFC Events section of the site.