If Frankie Edgar had his way, he would have made his return to fighting in his hometown this month.
But it wasn’t to be, and Edgar blames BKFC for his bout with Jimmie Rivera being cancelled.
Edgar, a former UFC lightweight champion and longtime featherweight contender, was to face his fellow octagon veteran Jimmie Rivera at BKFC 82 in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 4. However, just days before fight night, BKFC President David Feldman announced Edgar was pulled from the card due to medical issues.
Feldman later told MMA Fighting Edgar was still compensated for the bout despite not fighting, which Edgar has confirmed. However, that doesn’t mean Edgar is happy with the situation and he shared his side of the story on his Champ and The Tramp podcast.
“I was training for six, seven weeks, I got a week out from the fight and we get an e-mail, my manager gets an e-mail from someone from BKFC stating that the owner of BKFC is leaving for Manchester and he doesn’t have a phone on him,” Edgar said. “He can’t call you, but he’ll call you eventually. But in the meantime, his doctor recommended I don’t fight based on my age, consecutive TKO losses, my layoff, and my record, which sounds fugazi. That was before he’d even seen my medicals, this doctor, or anything, 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 much before we signed that deal, not to mention that I passed every single one of my medicals. I did a whole shit-ton of medicals.”
BKFC 82 was to mark Edgar’s first fight since retiring from the UFC in November 2022 following a first-round knockout loss to Chris Gutierrez, his third straight defeat via KO/TKO. Despite concerns around the 43-year-old’s health, Edgar insists he went through a thorough series of medical checks ahead of what was to be his bare-knuckle boxing debut.
Edgar claims that even though he sent the results of his medical tests to BKFC, they never made it to the commission.
“I got a physical, I got a blood test, I got an eye exam,” Edgar said. “Then I had to go to three different heart things. I went to a stress test, an echo test, and a carotid test. Three different appointments. Then I also went to a neurologist. I got an MRI and an MRA. Every single doctor said my stuff was great. Eye doctor as well.
“The promotion was trying to say they weren’t getting my medicals, which is bullshit, they got all medicals. Now, they did not send my medicals to the commission at all. At all. I’m talking to someone from the commission, he’s like, ‘We don’t have your medicals. What do you mean you can’t fight, we don’t have your medicals.’ … So I gathered all my medicals and I gave it to them and actually I got a call from someone there, they said, ‘I had the doctor from the commission look at your medicals and you look f*cking fantastic.’ That’s what he said to me. This is recently, this is after the fact I wasn’t fighting. He’s like, ‘Your MRI hasn’t changed since 2021. You have no white brain matter,’ that’s what they look for, I guess that signifies damage and whatnot. He said, ‘You have none of that.’ He even said, ‘I don’t know if you’re planning on doing anything, but you can tell your wife and family you’ve got a clean bill of health if you chose to fight more.’”
Having the chance to fight in New Jersey and guaranteed a healthy pay day, Edgar calls the BKFC opportunity the “perfect storm” to get him to come out of retirement. Adding to his aggravation with the situation is that it was not his plan to fight again and that BKFC came to him with multiple offers before he agreed to sign on, only for the fight to fail to come to fruition.
“I was not thinking about fighting,” Edgar said. “They came to me, I ignored them once. Then they come to me again. Then [my manager and BKFC] come up with a deal. He gave me a number. It was a f*cking pretty high number. I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘No.’ They came back and gave me the number that I would do it for, which was a very significant amount of money. That’s the only f*cking reason I got off the couch.
“Granted, once you woke up the beast, that’s 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 either.”
Not only did Edgar have to take time away from friends and family to put together a proper training camp, he also took part in numerous promotional appearances for BKFC 82. The experience left him feeling like the promotion may have used his name just to sell tickets to the event knowing full well that he might not be competing.
“I don’t know what BKFC is going to do, but this ain’t a good look,” Edgar said. “I want to be more mad and more pissed off about it, but I just can’t let it consume me that much, but you guys dogged me in my home-f*cking-state. That’s crazy. That’s f*cked up if you think about it. They came to me. I did everything they wanted, too, by the way.
“I went to every f*cking promotion. I hosted a f*cking watch party. I went to the Devils game. I did f*cking podcast after podcast promoting the fight. So I’ve been doing everything for them, so that’s f*cked.”
Edgar went further with his accusation, claiming BKFC wanted him to get his medicals done in New York instead of New Jersey. He admits to ignoring that instruction, but only because he considered the possibility that the promotion might be seeking a second opinion that was more to its benefit.
“I never even went to that appointment because it was bullshit,” Edgar said. “I think their doctor wanted to see me so they could tell me I wasn’t fit to fight.”
The debacle has left Edgar with few concrete answers, but he’s wondering if there were financial reasons to keep him off the card.
“They didn’t sell enough tickets and they figure let’s get one of the highest-paid guys on the card and get him off the card, we don’t have to pay him,” Edgar said. “Or they lost a sponsor. These are all speculations.”
“I thought I thought BKFC had something,” Edgar added. “I was like, wow, this is pretty entertaining. They got something. But not if they treat fighters like this. Because I’ll tell you what, fighters out there, beware.”
Edgar does not plan to sue BKFC for his whole purse as he isn’t interested in going toe-to-toe with Feldman and crew in court. Besides, he believes he might have been paid more not to fight than most of the boxers who competed at BKFC 82, which only makes the situation stranger in his eyes.
Most frustrating of all for Edgar is that BKFC’s handling of the situation makes it seem like he is unwilling or unable to fight. Edgar wants it to be clear not only was he ready to step into the bare-knuckle ring, but as far as he knows, there is nothing stopping him from fighting again should another lucrative opportunity come along.
“No matter what scenario went down, people are going to say, even still after this explanation, people are going to say, ‘Yo, you weren’t fit to fight,’” Edgar said. “That’s what they’re going to say. ‘You were medically not fit to fight.’ That’s going to be the narrative.
“Honestly, I don’t really don’t give a f*ck because the people that I know that know me know I was ready to go. I passed every f*cking medical and, honestly, thinking about it now, I haven’t got any of these medicals since my fight. I just got a clean bill of health. I’m good to go.”
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