Frankie Edgar on whether he regrets taking short-notice Korean Zombie fight, future plans at Bantamweight
Frankie Edgar was supposed to face Cory Sandhagen in his Bantamweight debut later this month. However, due to Brian Ortega pulling out of the final card of 2019 in the main event against Korean Zombie, UFC needed a replacement.
Frankie Edgar postponed his Bantamweight debut and took a short-notice fight against the "Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung. As you probably know by now, it didn't end well for The Answer. Korean Zombie took less than a round to finish Frankie Edgar brutally.
MMA Fighting caught up with Frankie Edgar and asked him whether he regretted taking the late-replacement fight against Korean Zombie. He claimed that he had no regrets:
“It was something I did,” Edgar told MMA Fighting. “You can’t go back and dwell on s**t you can’t change anyways. No regrets for me.
“Obviously, I wanted a different outcome, but I took the opportunity. It didn’t go my way. S**t happens, but those are the breaks."
Admitting to being a bit depressed and down on himself, he said that there was no choice but to move on. He was happy to give the Korean Zombie credit where it's due:
“He caught me with a good shot,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll look at it and I’ll be a little critical of something I did, but he’s on a tear,” Edgar said. “He’s been putting dudes away for a long time. He got me with a good shot. I did my best to stand there as long as I could, but it’s the way it went.
“I’m going to go down to bantamweight,” Edgar confirmed. “That was the whole plan before this obviously. The cards have been stacked against me my whole career being the smaller guy.
He said that taking the fight on short notice stacked the odds up even more and that he believes the best chance for him to win his next fight is at 135 pounds. As for not regretting the UFC Busan fight, Edgar was likely more than adequately compensated for saving the card. It's a well-known fact that fighters who save cards get paid well under the table and we hope for his sake that he was.
As for his 2020, we look forward to seeing him make his Bantamweight debut.