Frankie Edgar UFC (Photo : Photo: Twitter)
"You know, I think he was looking for a way out."
That was the bold statement of No. 2 ranked featherweight Frankie Edgar about his upcoming opponent No. 3 ranked Chad Mendes on the latter's last interim title fight.
"I know it's tough coming off two weeks' notice and supposedly he broke his foot and whatnot, but you've got to go into every fight trying to win, man," Edgar told the Anik and Florian podcast.
He concluded: "You can't be fighting for a paycheck. If you're fighting for a paycheck, I'm the wrong guy to be standing across the cage from."
Of course, these declarations didn't bode well with Mendes.
"I think that's super disrespectful," he said. "There's no way I'm ever going into any fight looking for a paycheck, looking for a way out. I'm going in there to win every single time. There's no way I'm ever taking a dive."
Mendes continued: "There's no amount of money in this world that could pay me off in a fight. I'm a very competitive person. I've been competing since I was five years old. This is my life. This is what I live for. I've built everything around that."
The fighter known as "Money" issued a final warning to his opponent.
"I'm not going to go in there looking to find an easy way out. There's only one way to find that out, Frankie. We're going to find out December 11. I definitely don't think this is going to be an easy fight for you."
The two top-ranked featherweights will square off in the main event of The Ultimate Fighter 22 Finale in Las Vegas, Nevada.
