Rooting for the Underdog

11Oct/110

Americans love a good underdog story, and the story of Frankie Edgar's ascent to the top of the lightweight division in the UFC is possibly one of the best underdog stories in all of mixed martial arts. FE was doing extremely well in his career, and when it came time for him to challenge BJ Penn for the belt, he was written off as an extreme underdog. He was always undersized for the division, as he typically walks around at the weight he fights at while most other fighters cut down significant amounts of weight. Not only was he fighting a naturally bigger fighter this time, but he was fighting BJ Penn. Most considered BJ Penn to be an extremely dominant fighter (and one of the top pound for pound fighters in the world) that excels in nearly all aspects of the game, but surprisingly FE fought him to a decision and won.

Critics wrote that off as a fluke, and the general concensus was that there needed to be a rematch. The rematch happened with the same outcome, but fans still weren't sold on Frankie Edgar as a champion.

His next title defense was against Gray Maynard, who handed FE's only career loss. This was an EPIC fight. Maynard absolutely ROCKED Frankie in the first round and it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the fight was over. It was an absolute testament to the heart of Frankie Edgar that he was able to tough it out through that brutal first round. Huge credit also goes to the ref for properly letting the fight play out and not stopping that fight prematurely, which he had a case for. Frankie came back out in the second round and fought with some fire. He put on an absolutely jaw dropping performance that was able to turn the outcome of that fight into a draw.

This past weekend, Edgar and Maynard met for the third time in the octagon. The first round played out in nearly the same fashion as their second meeting. I had my hands on my head, pulling at my hair, as Frankie got rocked early on by Maynard. Miraculously, he was able to weather the storm and fought the 2nd and 3rd rounds as if the 1st never happened. In the 4th round, he ended any possible questions as he was able to knock out Maynard.

If you watched the Edgar vs Maynard 2 and 3 and you did not walk away a fan of Frankie Edgar, then I don't know what to tell ya. Maybe mixed martial arts is not for you. For the longest time I've admired GSP but even though I think he is one of the world's most talented fighters, he has never displayed that level of courage, heart and determination inside the octagon.

At the heart of this story is a tale of a smaller fighter, who was discounted as an underdog even as the defending champion, who was brutalized and nearly stopped early on in the fight and courageously fought back to maintain his title as the lightweight champion of the world. This is Rocky in real life.