Issue 064

July 2010

You get the sense with Frankie Edgar that what you see is what you get. He fought – and defeated – BJ Penn under the open skies in Abu Dhabi at UFC 112, but, underdog or not, the little guy with ferocious speed and tenacity from Toms River, New Jersey, is very much a regular guy. 

He gets straight on that theme, citing ‘Jersey Shore’, the television series depicting the lives of eight twenty-somethings living in a house together on the New Jersey shore, filmed in Toms River, Neptune and Atlantic City. “Hey, man, most people think that because I’m from Toms River, I stepped straight out of that show. It’s a common misconception from people.”     

Edgar is blue-collar and proud of it; a lay-it-all-on-the-line guy, a bricklayer, a plasterer, a man who gives his all, day after day. It’s no surprise to learn that he had a trade before his MMA career, working as a plumber (firstly with the successful business his father runs, and then on his own). Edgar is fast-talking, articulate and has a college degree – a time he spent wrestling and studying, and ultimately learning the skills of time management. 

He certainly cleaned Penn’s pipes out – the Hawaiian (seen as untouchable at lightweight before the pair met for a dust-up in the desert) was turned over by Edgar’s rich cardio and relentless will during the contest.  

Edgar, an 8-1 underdog, upset the MMA applecart in defeating Penn, regarded as the world’s pre-eminent 155lb fighter. The ex-champion ended the contest marked under both eyes, having had the belt slowly unbuckled from around his waist in five rounds of all stand-up action. 

There are still those who are convinced Edgar was lucky to get the decision (the 50-45 score from judge Doug Crosby did seem somewhat far-fetched). The result of Edgar vs Penn split the critics. Pat Miletich (the former UFC fighter and highly respected coach) for example, had the fight for Penn, as did many other seasoned observers who felt that the champion had held the center of the Octagon and had counterpunched his way to victory. What Edgar did cleverly was to look the busier of the two. He ended victorious by dint of ability and cardio. From this observer’s standpoint, I thought that Edgar ended victorious through the sheer belligerence and arrogance of the champion, who refused to listen to his corner and take the fight to the ground.  

“I’m pretty active when I fight, it’s the way I always fight, and the fans seem to find it entertaining so I’m happy with that,” says Edgar. Needless to say, he was pretty satisfied with his night’s work, especially when his arm was raised aloft. 

Doubters aside, there was a huge moment in the fifth round when Penn missed with a left-right, and Edgar countered taking the champion down. Few could recall when Penn had last been taken down fully in the lightweight division – it had been years earlier. In essence, that takedown represented the legend of BJ Penn being upended. 

Credit must go to Edgar for defeating Penn, in spite of the rumors post-fight that the ex-champion had been ill. Edgar won in the stand-up, and Penn is highly rated by several boxing experts. Freddie Roach – trainer to the Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao and over 20 world champion boxers – has worked with Anderson Silva at his Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, Los Angeles, but has said that Penn has the best boxing in MMA. Yet Penn’s timing was disrupted by Edgar’s incessant movement. It was a clever strategy, and it worked. When they meet again Edgar will no doubt be slated as the underdog and written off as a ‘fortunate winner’. 

This is water under the bridge – Edgar is champion and, either way, Dana White and UFC matchmaker Joe Silva weren’t exactly slow in deciding to create the rematch, tipped for UFC 118 in Boston, Massachusetts. 

At UFC 112, Edgar outworked and out-maneuvered Penn for the majority of the fight, but it was an extremely close affair that produced three very different judges’ scorecards. Should Edgar triumph again, there will be no questions – Edgar admits that a rematch with Penn is the best possible scenario. He has done it once, so why not again?  

But there is also the unfinished business with Gray Maynard, the only blemish on Edgar’s 13-fight record. Was winning the lightweight belt just the beginning? “Of course it is, beating BJ was in itself a great victory. But the aim is to fight and get more title victories – absolutely it is. I’m one of those guys who is never satisfied. I want to be one of the champions people talk about. I’m glad I won it the way I did – I knew almost straightaway there would be a rematch coming with BJ Penn. It definitely makes sense, and so does a rematch with Gray Maynard. He has a win over me, and I want to square that up.” 

On Penn, Edgar has great respect for the former lightweight champion, who was defending the lightweight title for a fifth time. “Look, I know he’s known as one of the greatest fighters of all-time for a reason. He can do it all as a fighter and is a role model to many young guys coming up. 

“But I treat all my fights like championship bouts. The moment you start looking past an opponent is the point where you come unstuck. I always picture myself fighting the world champion – it’s very important to be mentally strong for a fight. You can prepare yourself physically, but if you fail in the mental side of things it will all come undone. 

“I see mixed martial arts as the truest and purest form of fighting. I came from a wrestling background and wrestled in college, but there were never any avenues for me to pursue it professionally. That’s when mixed martial arts entered my life and changed everything.” 

Edgar, a 5’5” fighting machine of 155lb, bristles and bubbles with energy like a boiling cauldron. Taking us back to his early childhood, he recalls: “I can remember playing in a baseball game when I was around five years old, as a first memory of being involved, being competitive, but the first sport I really loved was soccer. I was good on the field, quick; I was good when I played, but don’t think I had a position. What I can remember was that I – we all, I think – used to just run all over the place. I was a hyperactive kid.” I’m not going to tell him, but he still is. 

“The funny thing is that I was never a really big sports guy, outside the Superbowl, the basketball play-offs, the Yankees games in the World Series – apart from that I never really got into sports all the time. 

“You know, I don’t take too much notice of sport when I’m at home. I’m a boring family man when I’m at home and not at training. I stay in, and we always have friends hanging out over at our house. A lot of us grew up together in high school, it’s where I met Renee [his wife, with who he has a boy and another child on the way, due in June] and we have a lot of common friends. The gang are always over at our house.” 

From the age of 12, wrestling began to dominate Edgar’s physical existence. “I started wrestling in the seventh grade, and then stopped everything else. I knew I wanted to focus on it – I just think I was made for combat sports, one-on-one, you versus the other guy, no one else to look around to support you, all the burden on your shoulders.

“Some guys like team sports, I liked to be on my own and have all the responsibility of whether I rose or fell. I’m not a team guy in that respect. Wrestling helped me stay grounded.” As did cross-country running, he explains, which he was “pretty good at” and which enhanced his cardiovascular fitness, giving him the engine he possesses today. “When I first started wrestling I wasn’t very good. I was tough but the technique was not there. But it came, slowly.” 

What he had was a great base in wrestling at Toms River High School East, where he became a New Jersey state championship wrestler twice. He continued wrestling at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where he qualified for the nationals all four years he spent there.  

If he wasn’t fighting for a living he’d be a plumber now, or a police officer, another job scenario that crossed his mind. “I went into college, I wrestled, I graduated from college, but I really didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I joined the union and worked for my father’s company for a while, and trained as a plumber while at the same time coaching wrestling.” 

Then he discovered MMA. “Three weeks after, I had my first fight. I remember watching the UFC when I was a young kid, it got my attention straight away. Then it went underground – The Ultimate Fighter started up when I was at college, and when college was over, not having wrestling left a void in my life. Once I’d started MMA, I knew it would fulfill me.” 

Edgar, like all wrestlers, loves the physical challenges of the sport, the upper limits, the cardio-sapping sessions, the pleasure/pain threshold and burning lungs, but believes the toughest part of this rapidly morphing sport is the psychological element. “In my opinion the mental aspect of being a fighter is tougher than the physical side. Then the more popular you get, the critics come closer to your every move, and it is a thing to get used to when you are promoting a fight alongside a guy you are thinking of fighting in eight weeks’ time, and who is in the way of your career progressing. 

“I don’t really have a mental coach, but my regular coaches are all-in in that sense. We prepare, strategize, and in that sense they coach my mind – Steve Rivera [wrestling coach], Mark Henry and Ricardo Almeida. Ricardo does what I do and has been in the game longer, and is much more seasoned, so I take his lead and advice.” Edgar has become a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Almeida. 

When I asked Edgar to draw up a list of his sporting heroes, it spoke volumes for teamwork in MMA, and it is plain to see why his triumph over BJ Penn was lauded so much as a team triumph. “My teachers and my coaches are my heroes, because they are the ones who believe in me. There is a lot of emotion involved in the group when one of the guys is fighting. It is an amazing feeling, because you know you could not have got there without them.” 

“Winning in Abu Dhabi definitely has to go down as one of my best moments. Before that, I’d go back to being a freshman in the wrestling team in high school. I wrestled a kid, Jim Sutter, who was a few years older and a very good wrestler, and I lost both matches. Then I wrestled him again towards the end of the season and beat him in overtime. I’m getting goosebumps now just thinking about it and remembering. That was the moment I really truly learned what ‘try, try, then try again’ really meant.” 

Edgar is already giving back to the game and suggests that he may have a gym of his own one day. He insists one of his most rewarding moments has been seeing a young man he is coaching become a junior state wrestler. “One of the kids I helped, Vinnie Delafont, was a freshman when he won his state title. That was a proud moment for me; I really like being a mentor. It is so important to have mentors and be a mentor. It is nice to give back, as well as to take. The people involved in my career from the beginning to now are still around and have influenced me to this point. One man steps into the Octagon against another but you cannot go too far without a team behind you. They must take credit for some of my success. As soon as they started cornering, it made the sport much more personal.” 

When Edgar thinks of his sporting heroes, it is plain to see why his triumph over BJ Penn was lauded as a team effort. “My teammates and my coaches, they are the ones that really believe in me... The victory over BJ Penn was all about that. When you work and train with other people, you develop a passion and an emotion for them. We are individuals but we have to be teams.” 

Strangely, it is not an MMA contest that Edgar would most like to see, given the choice of any sporting event from history, though he chooses an epic fight all the same. “Ali-Foreman, the Rumble in the Jungle – one of the biggest fights ever. A sport that would send me to sleep? Curling – definitely curling. I don’t get down to that.” 

When we move on to the heavyweight topics circulating in MMA at present – the phenomenal fan-growth in the last three years and the taking of New York – it is clear these are subjects about which Edgar has thought long and hard. Are UFC fans too critical? After all, they launched on BJ Penn after Edgar’s defeat. They railed against Anderson Silva’s behavior in the Octagon on the same night against Demian Maia. Are they too hard-line, becoming too demanding? “The general fans, no. They just want to see the best fight the best; the die-hard fans are hard on the fighters at times, but if it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t be where we are today – I really respect the fans. They get a lot of the fighters up in the morning. I want to go out there and give my all and entertain in every fight.”

The greatest change Edgar would like to see in the running of the sport today would be for New York to be sanctioned to host major events, and the sooner the better, he reckons. It looks as if there will be a breakthrough this year, and the most powerful media hub in America will open its doors to the UFC. When it happens, Edgar wants in. “Naturally, coming from just the other side of the river, for me New York is virtually a part of New Jersey. It’s one of the major things I’d like to see – New York getting sanctioned. It is ridiculous that it is not. 

“I can’t see one reason why it shouldn’t be sanctioned. Having an event at Madison Square Garden puts a huge, positive spin on MMA, the UFC and brings it further into the mainstream. I want to be on that event when it happens. I think it’s only four states now that aren’t sanctioned. There were a lot of people who were fighting against its acceptance in the state of New York who were not educated about the sport, and denied the sport a chance without knowing what the sport is or who the protagonists are. They were stubborn about it, but thankfully we’ve turned a corner.” 

Edgar believes an event at Madison Square Garden would be on a par with the magnitude of any event, including UFC 100. “It’s the world’s most famous arena for fighting and in the ‘70s it was the most famous arena in the world. Once we are in there, it will be a seminal development for the sport. Past and future events will take place and the first event there will stand out forever, with history being made – that is an event I really want to fight on.” 

He would also like to see greater and more widespread media recognition for the sport. “I think it is getting much more acceptable for mainstream sports outlets to cover MMA. At first it was MMA websites and reporters, and now across the board there is greater mainstream coverage – and with it, of course, more scrutiny. But it’s all good for the sport.” 

Talking with Frankie Edgar leaves you breathless. It is as if he has a mental list of dozens of things that need to be done, and they will be. “That’s why my sporting motto is ‘No rest for the best’. That’s the only way you can stay on top in MMA – never rest on your laurels. MMA is an unforgiving sport in that way.” He’s right – just ask BJ Penn. 

Frankie Edgar will rematch BJ Penn on UFC 118 in Boston in August. 

Inside the mind of Frank James Edgar 

Frankie Edgar likes the idea of concocting an imaginary dinner with a series of characters attending from history. It reveals a depth, patriotism and the modernist in him.  

“I would definitely invite Theodore Roosevelt. I was a science major as was he,

I believe – and he implemented his policies and was a tough-guy politician and a great American president. 

“I’d have a weird mixture of people at the dinner. Jay-Z is my favorite music artist, he’s one of the best guys in hip hop and he has been at the top for a very long time. 

“Joe Pesci, the actor – there as an entertainer and a joker. I loved him

in GoodFellas – maybe he could come as the character he played in GoodFellas.  

“Then Michael Jordan, just because he was always on top of his game and is the best athlete the world has ever seen. I’d like to ask him how he stayed grounded through it all.” 

Modern-day gladiators

Elite UFC champions and mixed martial artists at the top of the sport have been referred to as ‘modern-day gladiators’. What weapon would Edgar have chosen in the Colosseum in Rome? Edgar pauses – he really wants to give this some thought. 

In conversation with Rich Franklin, the light heavyweight mixed martial artist, I had asked the same question. The former high school math teacher had really pondered – harpoon and net, lance, sword and shield, or two swords? 

Franklin had replied that a good pair of running shoes would have been good because he could have run his gladiatorial opponent off his feet. Edgar liked that when I relayed Franklin’s answer to him. He afforded himself a little chuckle. “I’d go for the sword and a shield. Obviously in those days it was not like fighting is today. Your life is not on the line in what we do, but I think both offense and defense are real important in a fight, so I would choose the sword and shield. That way I’d preserve myself and be able to attack.” 

Frankie Edgar: Quickfire Q&A

In the style that Edgar beat BJ Penn, a series of in-and-out questions from different angles. 

What was the last film you saw? 

The Book of Eli. 

What book are you reading at the moment? 

Confessions of a Serial Killer by Richard Kuklinksi [Kuklinski worked for American-Italian crime families and claimed to have murdered over 250 men over a career lasting almost four decades. He reckons he killed for the first time aged 13].

What's your biggest extravagance? 

I have a street racing bike, a Honda CBR 600 – but if I’m totally honest, I haven’t been on it for a long time. Since I started MMA, I’ve got to look after my legs and not get injured.

Who would you look on as your non-sporting hero? 

I’d have to say my father. He’s a hard worker; I watched him closely when I was growing up, and he instilled a lot of his beliefs about hard work in me. He started work early every day and finished last thing at night and built up a successful business. He has passed the same drive and motivation on to me.

What's your biggest fear? 

I don’t know really. I’m pretty positive as a person. 

My biggest fear is probably failure.

What role did you play in the classroom? 

I wish I could say I was the class clown. I was a social being – very, very social – all my friends from high school still come around to my house. It is the place everyone seems to hang out. We have big UFC parties here when fights are on. Everyone comes over and we are a bunch of buddies and fans together. 

What did you get out of school? 

My high school expectations, which were the same as the college ones, revolved around wrestling. I was involved in Division 1 wrestling so I was always juggling schoolwork. One of the things it did teach me was time management.

When did you last clean your toilet? 

Not too long ago – I like a nice clean throne to sit on.

What word or phrase do you use too often? 

I say ‘dude’ a lot at times, or ‘yo’. Dude, I’m bad...  

What is your most embarrassing memory?

I was working on a roof as a plumber in a demolition job, cutting some pipes down. My pants caught on fire from the sparks and they ended up frayed and burnt, with me running around on the roof trying to put them out. A fair-sized crowd ended up being there watching. 

If you had three wishes what would they be? 

My family taken care of, to have a happy life, to defend the UFC lightweight title six or seven times and be a dominant champion.

What is a common misconception people have of you? 

That, because of where I live, we are like the people on the television series ‘Jersey Shore’. It’s a major misconception. I’m not like that, nor are many of the people I know. 

What is your greatest achievement? 

Sports-wise it is hard to look beyond winning the UFC lightweight title right now. The only place you can go from winning the world title is defending the world title. Outside the sport, my greatest achievements are being a husband and a father.

If I wasn't an MMA fighter I would be...? 

Most likely still doing the plumbing but looking for another career.

What makes you really angry?

My wife, my mother and my sister are the three people in the world who can make me angry. No one else gets me angry, but they know the right buttons to push. It’s real easy for them. It’s nothing too malicious – but yes, they love to wind me up. 

Who was the last person to see you naked? 

My wife. 

What question are you asked most often by the public when they meet you? 

How did I get the nickname ‘The Answer’? The real answer is that my buddy gave it to me – it just stuck, but I’ve never really found the answer to the reason why.