The clock on Frankie Edgar's viability as a UFC title contender is about to enter the red.
In December, he impressively KO'd Chad Mendes in the headline event for the Ultimate Fighter card. With McGregor vs Aldo coming the following night, it seemed Edgar's time for a title shot had arrived.
That title shot was quickly erased from the blackboard when McGregor was basically given free choice of his next opponent. A lightweight title fight against Rafael dos Anjos was the Dubliner's chosen match-up.
When dos Anjos was forced to withdraw from the fight with a fractured foot, Edgar was one of the first to be offered the chance to replace the Brazilian.
Unfortunately for Edgar, he had an injured groin muscle at the time and was unable to take the fight.
Now, with McGregor likely to face Nate Diaz again at UFC 200 - rather than defend his featherweight belt - Edgar must endure another wait.
This is something which has angered Edgar's manager Ali Abdelaziz.
In a post on Instagram, Abdelaziz accused McGregor of 'ducking' his fighter.
When history speaks for itself, Frankie Edgar will go down as the guy who fought anyone at any weight, any time, and anywhere. But when history speaks for Conor McGregor he was a UFC champion who hand picked his opponents and chose guys out of shape to fight him and he ducked Frankie.
Every media member I talked to, a majority of the fans wants to see Edgar vs Mcgregor but Conor's coaches since he lost to Nate Diaz for every interview they talk about everyone else except for Frankie. At this point I'm blaming the UFC for not making this fight happen because I think it's really up to them and they can make Conor fight Frankie.
I'm done with this. It's been a miserable last 4 months talking and negotiating getting this fight to happen but now I realize the only person who needs to step up and say he wants to fight Frankie is Conor. But I don't believe he wants to because he and everyone else knows that Frankie would whoop his ass. I have zero respect for a champion who ducks contenders and that's that.
To say that McGregor dodges opponents is unfair.
He could easily have pulled out of UFC 189 when Jose Aldo withdrew due to a rib injury, instead - on short notice - he fought Chad Mendes. McGregor himself was still recovering from a knee injury during that fight.
Again, earlier this month, he faced another opponent - Nate Diaz - on short notice.
The Dubliner has only been featherweight champion for four months. It's far too early yet to accuse him of dodging opponents.
Picture credit: Ramsey Cardy / SPORTSFILE
