Former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar was set to come out of retirement to compete in his home state of New Jersey at BKFC 82 this past weekend. Just days prior to his bare-knuckle fighting debut, “The Answer” was left searching for answers when he was pulled off the fight card in Newark.
Edgar has since broken his silence, issuing a stern warning to other competitors who may be doing business with the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship promotion.
“I was training for six, seven weeks, I got a week off from the fight and we get an email, my manager gets an email from someone at BKFC saying the owner of BKFC is leaving for Manchester and he doesn’t have a phone with him,” Edgar said. “He can’t call you, but he will call you eventually. But in the meantime, his doctor recommended not fighting based on my age, back-to-back TKO losses, my layoff and my criminal record, which sounds fugazi. That was before he had even seen my medical records, this doctor or something, 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 long before we signed that deal, not to mention the fact that I passed all my medical exams. I did a lot of medical exams.”
While I was talking about the Champ and the Tramp PodcastEdgar discussed the situation.
Edgar was originally scheduled to face New Jersey native 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 During fight week, it was announced that “The Answer” had been replaced by Timothy Mason.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 released a statement ahead of the match.
“After further review with our medical officer, we have determined that Frankie Edgar would not compete this Saturday,” Feldman said. “We’ll look at it and see what his future looks like, but he won’t be competing on Saturday.”
In the podcast, Edgar explained the situation further.
“I got a physical exam, I got a blood test, I got an eye exam,” Edgar said. “Then I had to go to three different cardiac cases. I went to a stress test, an ultrasound test and a carotid artery test. Three different appointments. Then I also went to a neurologist. I got an MRI and an MRA. Every doctor said my stuff was great. Also an ophthalmologist.”
“The promotion tried to say they didn’t get my medical meds, which is bullshit, they got all my meds. Now they didn’t send my meds to the committee at all. Not at all. I’m talking to someone from the committee and he says, ‘We don’t have your meds. What do you mean you can’t fight; we don’t have your meds.’ … So I gathered all my medical records, and I gave it to them and actually I got a call from someone there, they said, ‘I had the commission doctor look at your medical records and you look damn fantastic.’ That’s what he said to me. This is recently; this is after i wasn’t fighting. He says, “Your MRI hasn’t changed since 2021. You don’t have white brain matter,” that’s what they’re looking for, I think that indicates damage and all that. He said, ‘You don’t have any of that.’ He even said, “I don’t know if you plan to do anything, but you can tell your wife and family that you are in good health if you choose to fight more.”
After it was originally announced that Edgar would compete on the Newark fight card, fans and media began to question whether it was a good idea or not.
“I wasn’t thinking about fighting,” Edgar said. “They (BKFC) came to me, I ignored them once. Then they came to me again. Then.” [my manager and BKFC] come up with a deal. He gave me a number. It was a pretty high number, damn it. I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘No.’ They came back and gave me the number I was going to do it for, which was a very significant amount of money. That’s the only reason I got off the couch.
“Granted, once you woke up the beast, 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.”
Edgar says he did everything the BKFC promotion asked him to do prior to the event, but then they left him in the dark.
“I don’t know what BKFC is going to do, but this doesn’t look good,” Edgar said. “I want to be angrier and more pissed off about it, but I can’t let it consume me that much, but you guys chased me in my home f*cking state. That’s insane. That’s f*cked when you think about it. They came to me. I did everything they wanted too, by the way.
“I went to every damn promotion. I threw a damn viewing party. I went to the Devils game. I did damn podcast after podcast promoting the fight. So I did everything for them, so that’s damned.”
Now, Frankie Edgar doesn’t know what to believe because of the incident and has issued a stern warning to the fighters.
“They weren’t selling enough tickets and they thought, let’s put one of the highest-paid guys on the card and take him off the card, we don’t have to pay him,” Edgar said. “Or they lost a sponsor. This is all speculation.”
“I thought BKFC had something,” Edgar added. “I thought, wow, this is pretty entertaining. They’ve got something. But not when they treat fighters like this. ‘Cause I tell you what, fighters out there, watch out.”
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