THE CANADIAN PRESS
LAS VEGAS — Lightweight champion Frankie (The Answer) Edgar and challenger Gray (The Bully) Maynard both made weight Friday in advance of UFC 125.
The two fighters weighed in at the 155-pound limit at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Neither had much to say in brief remarks after the weigh-in other than to predict victory Saturday night.
“Gray with the win,” said Maynard (11-0 with one no contest).
“I’m going to walk away with the win,” echoed Edgar (13-1), who suffered the only loss of his career to Maynard in 2008. “It’s revenge, man, you can’t beat it.”
Everyone else made weight and there were few fireworks.
Welterweight Nate Diaz ignored Dong Hyun (Stun Gun) Kim’s offer to shake hands, offering the South Korean a close-up sneer instead.
And middleweight Chris (The Crippler) Leben stared intently at Brian (All American) Stann as the two co-main event fighters faced off. Stann tried to shake hands afterwards but had to settle for a somewhat awkward pat.
Middleweight Phil (The New York Bad Ass) Baroni entered with his normal swagger, complete with leather jacket, gaudy belt buckle and shades.
A slimmed-down Marcus (The Irish Hand Grenade) Davis weighed in at 156 pounds for his debut at lightweight.
Edgar looks to avenge loss to The Bully
Frankie (The Answer) Edgar already has the UFC lightweight title. A win Saturday night and he may finally get the respect that should go with it.
Edgar meets Gray (The Bully) Maynard, the only man to have beaten him, in the main event of UFC 125 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena (available on pay-per-view).
Despite having upset MMA icon B.J. (The Prodigy) Penn at UFC 112 in April to win the 155-pound title and then dominating him to defend it at UFC 118 in August, Edgar enters the rematch with Maynard (11-0 with one no contest) as the underdog.
Edgar (13-1) seems unfazed by the apparent slight.
"If I keep winning fights, the respect will come eventually," he said.
It hasn’t yet, in part because of Edgar’s size. He is five foot six and hardly has to cut weight to make 155 pounds.
Surrounded by a scrum of reporters, Edgar is positively Hobbit-like. And when the two fighters posed for photographers Wednesday, the 29-year-old from New Jersey looked like Maynard’s kid brother.
But underestimate Edgar at your peril.
A former all-American collegiate wrestler, Edgar is mobile, resourceful and tough.
A piece of Edgar’s ear, already gnarled by years of wrestling, was literally kicked off during a pre-UFC bout with Jim Miller in November 2006.
No problem.
"I got it glued shut," Edgar said.
And so today, "it just looks like any other cauliflower ear."
In his UFC debut against unbeaten Tyson Griffin in February 2007 at UFC 67, Edgar found himself in a painful leg hold as the fight came to a close. Edgar calmly looked up at the clock on one of the big screens at the Mandalay Bay Event Center and figured he could endure the pain a little longer.
He suffered through 45 seconds, refusing to tap and won a unanimous decision.
Against Penn, Edgar showed a bustling standup game that featured plenty of feints and movement. He moved in, attacked and withdrew — from a variety of angles and always at speed.
"He made B.J. look old and B.J.’s not old," said UFC president Dana White.
After a close first fight, Edgar recorded 94 significant strikes to Penn’s 36 in the rematch and led 3-2 in takedowns, according to FightMetric which tracks MMA bouts. It made for a lopsided 50-45 decision.
He will need more of the same against the five-foot-eight Maynard, a former Michigan State all-American wrestler who outlasted and outsmuscled Edgar to win a unanimous 30-27 decision when they met in April 2008. While much of the fight was on the feet, Maynard’s third-round takedowns were probably the difference that night.
Edgar’s subsequent success helped take away the sting of the Maynard loss but that doesn’t stop him from calling his record "13 (wins) and Gray Maynard."
Saturday’s winner will meet Anthony (Showtime) Pettis who defeated WEC champion Ben (Smooth) Henderson via decision Dec. 16, unleashing a highlight-reel kick off the fence in the final seconds.
Conventional wisdom has Edgar looking to use his speed, in-and-out striking and scrambling ability to attack Maynard while eluding his offence.
And to keep the fight in the middle of the cage.
That’s what Montreal coach Firas Zahabi urged Kenny Florian to do between rounds against Maynard at UFC 118.
"Don’t let him take you close to the fence," Zahabi told him. "Stay away from the fence at all times."
Whenever Florian failed to follow that advice, Maynard drove him into the fence and took him down where he could control and punish him.
Maynard followed his own game plan to perfection, inviting Florian to leave his comfort zone and chase him.
The 31-year-old Maynard, whose standup game has improved enormously over the years, says he is confident in any position against Edgar.
"I feel like wherever it goes, I’m prepared, I’m going to take it, that’s how I feel. I don’t care who is, actually.
Both men have gone 5-0 since their first encounter, with Edgar dispatching Hermes Franca, former champion Sean Sherk, Matt Veach and Penn twice. Maynard has taken out Rich Clementi, Miller, Roger Huerta, Nate Diaz and Florian.
Yet in a sport where fans prize finishes, both fighters have eight decision wins and only two knockouts (Edgar also has three submission victories).
"I think I put on exciting fights," Edgar said. "Fight of the night three times in my career. I go full force all the time. Maybe I can get a little better at pushing fights but I’m growing too in that area."
Considering the outcome of their first fight, Maynard might justifiably have griped at being passed by for the title shot that Edgar got earlier this year. But he never did.
"Now’s a perfect time and I’m prepared," said Maynard, a man of few words when it comes to the media. "It’s their choice to choose whoever and it was fine at the time. And now I have my time to shine."
Edgar got married less than two weeks after the first fight, but refused to use that an as a possible excuse.
"I don’t like to blame it on anything, I just felt it wasn’t my night," he said.
"If I had any other job I still have to work 10 days before my wedding," added Edgar, who worked for his plumbing contractor father before quitting to fight full time.
Maynard also knows the value of hard work. After leaving Michigan State, he laid asphalt for a summer in Las Vegas.
"I couldn’t believe it because I had a college degree. I was like ‘What the hell am I doing?’ It was a cool job, there was some good cash," he said. "But I like to compete, so it was an easy choice for me."
After college, he tried out unsuccessfully for the U.S. Olympic wrestling team — a bid that prompted the "One Life" and "Roll the Dice" tattoos on his upper torso.
"You’ve just got to take the chance every day, you’ve got to roll the dice," Maynard explained. "One life."
He came home "kind of fat" and hit the gym, only to be summoned to Hawaii by Penn, who was looking for some wrestling help in advance of a November 2004 fight against Rodrigo Gracie.
Maynard made his pro debut in April 2006 and one fight later was cast for Season 5 of "The Ultimate Fighter" reality TV show, losing to eventual winner Nate Diaz in the semifinals.
Edgar also tried out for Season 5. He survived the first few rounds of the auditions and even met the show’s producers, but failed to make the final grade.
"It’s TV. Drama sells audiences, I guess," Edgar said later. "Maybe, I’m not what they’re looking for."
Still he made an impression. UFC matchmaker Joe Silva called his manager a couple of weeks later and offered the fight with Griffin on four weeks notice.
Some three years later he was champion and today shares the same manager and some of the same coaches as Canadian welterweight title-holder Georges St-Pierre.
Maynard is a no-nonsense sort who says he didn’t see the Pettis-Henderson fight because he doesn’t have cable.
When not fighting, the Las Vegas resident can be found wakeboarding, mountain biking or doing something else outdoors.
His nickname originally came from his dog.
"He was a bully and I kind of am if I train," Maynard explained. "It was a joke, like ‘Damn you guys are bullies.’ It just kind of stuck."
These days the nickname belong exclusively to Maynard.
His dog’s name has been changed from Tank to Hank. "He’s old, fat, retired so he’s not a bully anymore."
While Edgar can still walk into the lobby of the MGM Grand in a hoodie and be largely ignored, the champion is enjoying some perks of the job.
He has his own logo Fe, a play on his name and the chemical symbol for iron, with a clothing line to follow.
After the second Penn win, he upgraded from a 2004 Mercedes to a BMW M5.
"It’s a used one but I like to drive fast," he said.
The New York Jets also invited him to speak to the team at its hotel before a game earlier this season against the Houston Texans.
"I pretty much just told the Jets about being mentally tough, not giving up and about respect, as long as you believe in yourself and believe in your teammates, you can conquer anything," he said. "I think it resonated well with them that night. "
The Jets blew a 16-point lead in the fourth-quarter before rallying to win 30-27 the next day, with quarterback Mark Sanchez attributing Edgar’s talk for "a little extra inspiration."
"The guy’s barely taller than this podium and he beats B.J. Penn," he told the post-game news conference.
While Edgar is new to the fame game, he is clearly learning as he goes.
Asked if he is a Jets fan, he cooly answers: "I am now."
