Hall Of Fame
The Great Frankie Edgar
Reflecting Upon The Career Of "The Answer," The First Member Of The 2024 Class Of The UFC Hall Of Fame
In 2005, Frankie Edgar wasn’t thinking about getting a place in the UFC Hall of Fame. He just wanted to fight.
So fight he did. There were no lucrative paydays, no viable career path in a sport that was just starting to get some mainstream traction following the finale of The Ultimate Fighter’s first season two months earlier, and not even any sanctioning in the state where he met Eric Uresk.
“We drove up to the Bronx on a Sunday, and it was probably 110 degrees in that gym,” Edgar told me in 2016. “There was no ambulance there, there was no weigh-in, there were no rounds. We were just doing a 15-minute go.”
Frankie Edgar Named To UFC Hall Of Fame
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Frankie Edgar Named To UFC Hall Of Fame
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Edgar, a stellar college wrestler, wasn’t your average plumber looking to get into a scrap, so the Jersey kid, just 23 years old, didn’t need 15 minutes to vanquish Uresk. He scored the TKO in less than four minutes, headbutts included, and received 60 bucks and a broken orbital bone for his trouble.
ICYMI: Frankie Edgar Named To 2024 Class Of The UFC Hall Of Fame
He loved it. His future wife Renee, not so much, but she was in for the ride, one that would see the Edgars have three children while Frankie became one of the best to ever do it in the UFC. The accolades were all announced to the world last Saturday, when the former lightweight champion and featherweight / bantamweight contender became the first member of the UFC Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024.
It was a well-deserved honor for the 42-year-old pride of Toms River, New Jersey, who retired after his November 2022 bout with Chris Gutierrez. Edgar lost that fight in Madison Square Garden, but it was never about wins or losses with “The Answer” when it came to his relationship with the fans. It was how he made everyone feel.
Frankie Edgar Talks Hall of Fame Induction
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Frankie Edgar Talks Hall of Fame Induction
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When Edgar’s name was on the fight card, there were certain expectations, and he always delivered them. Win, lose or draw, he was going to show up in shape, on weight, and ready to fight against anyone, anywhere at any time. That was evident even before he made it to the UFC when Edgar, still working his day job, was fighting on the Jersey regional scene against the likes of Jim Miller and Deividas Taurosevicius.
But his reputation was cemented when he went to war with Tyson Griffin for three rounds in his UFC debut in 2007, surviving a locked-in kneebar to get the unanimous decision victory and his first of eight Fight of the Night bonuses. And that was on a card featuring Anderson Silva, Mirko Cro Cop, “Rampage” Jackson and Lyoto Machida.
It wouldn’t be the last time Edgar stole the show from bigger names. It was just what he did. He didn’t get into trash talk wars or Twitter battles, there was no pushing and shoving at press conferences or weigh-ins, no screaming just to hear the sound of his own voice. Edgar was always all-business, content to let his fists do the talking. In this day and age, that’s not easy. To do it for over 15 years has to be near-impossible. But Edgar never changed. He was a true pro, a perfect ambassador for the sport, and an example not just to his daughter and and two sons, but to his peers, none of whom had anything negative to say about him.
That’s rare. What’s even more rare is doing it at the top of the game throughout that decade and a half. Edgar finally became a full-time fighter after his third UFC bout, a win over Spencer Fisher in his native New Jersey, even though his dad continued to pay his union dues for a while just in case this whole thing didn’t work out.
RELATED: UFC Athletes Discuss Edgar's Legacy
But it did. Edgar lost his fourth UFC bout to Gray Maynard in 2008, but after reeling off three straight wins in response, he got his crack at future Hall of Famer BJ Penn at UFC 112 in 2010. Again, Edgar was the underdog, but 25 minutes later, he was a world champion. He would beat Penn twice more, engage in a pair of classics with Maynard, drawing once before stopping his friendly rival in their third bout.
Along the way, there were two fights each with Jose Aldo and Benson Henderson, wins over Charles Oliveira, Cub Swanson, Urijah Faber, Chad Mendes and Yair Rodriguez. In his last win in August of 2020, it was vintage Edgar as he earned another Fight of the Night bonus in a bantamweight win over Pedro Munhoz.
That marked at least one UFC win in three weight classes, another remarkable feat, and it proved that maybe he was going to make one last run at UFC gold, but Edgar was smart enough to know when to say when, letting it be known that the Gutierrez bout was going to be his last. Of course, I had to ask him if he was going to change his mind about retirement with a win over the rising star.
“A lot of my team says I'm gonna sit there and pull a 'Wolf of Wall Street' and say 'I'm not f**kin' leaving,'” Edgar laughed. “But I was never gonna be the guy to say, ‘I'm gonna retire.’ I was just gonna walk away. But by saying I'm gonna retire before it happens, I think it’s gonna hold myself accountable and I gotta move on to the next chapter of my life.”
He’s kept his word. And he’s moved on. Yes, fighting will always be in his blood, but with a successful podcast. The Champ and The Tramp, with former Jersey Shore star Roger Mathews, and his first starring role in the recently released film “The Bastard Sons” in the bank, Frankie Edgar is going to be just fine in a well-deserved retirement.
See, there are happy endings in the fight game sometimes.
