Frankie Edgar reflects on Gray Maynard rematch 10 years later: ‘I don’t remember much of that fight’

By Drake Riggs - January 21, 2021

Together, Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard gave us arguably the greatest trilogy in MMA history. As of the start of 2021, the rematch was 10 years ago.

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Incredibly, Edgar remains a top contender in the sport today as a 135-pound bantamweight. Yet his claim to fame came at 155-pounds as the UFC lightweight champ. During his run, he and Maynard gave us two of the greatest bouts of all time.

First meeting in April 2008, the unbeaten 4-0 Maynard would hand the then 9-0 Frankie Edgar his first career loss via unanimous judge’s call. Three years later on New Year’s day 2011, they put on an instant classic that resulted in a split draw.

“I’ll be straight up honest, I don’t remember much of that fight,” Edgar said on The Bo & Glow MMA Show. “After that first round, I was definitely in la-la land. I don’t think until the third or possibly fourth round I remember coming to, in a sense. And the reason I came to was because I remember my ankle — I’m moving around and I’m like, ‘Damn, why is my ankle hurting so bad?’ In the first round when I got dropped I sprained my ankle really, really bad. And I had no idea how it happened.

“Even after the fight, I was upset because a draw to me — it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to go over there and get the win and obviously, I didn’t know what I did.

“I was talking to my coach Mark [Henry], he was like, ‘Dude, wait until you see this fight. You got takedowns,’ and I was like, ‘I took him down?!'” Frankie Edgar said with a laugh. “I had no idea I even took him down. After watching it, that’s when it kind of all came back to me. But yeah, I didn’t really come back until the fourth round and I remember going into the fifth and they’re saying I got one more round. I’m like one more round? What happened to two and three? I didn’t even know what happened.”

Later that same year, the Toms River native would even the score and knockout “The Bully” in the fourth round of their trilogy bout.

A full decade later and Edgar, 39, is now matched with Cory Sandhagen in a pivotal bantamweight clash on Feb. 6. As for Maynard, he was released from the UFC in 2019. He went 3-6 after his last two bouts with “The Answer”.

This article appeared first on BJPENN.COM


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Frankie Edgar Gray Maynard UFC