Everyone wants a piece of that red panty night.
Conor McGregor famously told a packed rostrum of UFC fighters that when you fight him, you ring home to your Mrs and tell her to break out the red panties “‘cos we made it baby”.
So the moment it emerged lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos was dropping out of the fight with a broken foot, they were all queueing up for a shot at the Notorious.
We had Northern Irish lightweight Norman Parke offering to fight, Urijah Faber chucked his hat in the ring on Twitter and even people like Armenian bantamweight Manny Gamburyan were willing to take the big money fight just 12 days out.
Former champ Anthony Pettis wanted it and Donald Cerrone even posted a picture of himself on the running machine cutting weight in anticipation of a call from the UFC.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BCIys4zOfbM/
But it seems not everyone was willing to step up and have a swing at the featherweight king.
Dana White, who was probably ringing around every fighter between 145lbs and 170lbs in the western world yesterday, confirmed he offered the fight to some interesting names – and they turned it down.
“We called Jose Aldo, Jose Aldo turned the fight down,” White said. “We called Frankie Edgar, Frankie Edgar turned the fight down.”
It’s interesting as Aldo, who was beaten in 13 seconds by McGregor, said he’d fight the Irishman ‘any time, anywhere’ in this message to the UFC. It seems there were some caveats in Aldo’s ultimatum for a rematch with McGregor then.
Edgar too has been vociferously calling for a shot at McGregor and has made no secret of the fact that he’s p*ssed at the UFC for constantly overlooking him.
MMA writer Ariel Helwani confirmed that Edgar was actually injured, but at least he can’t say he wasn’t offered.
If you’re clamoring for Edgar, he’s unavailable, I’m told. Dealing w/ an injury. There aren’t a ton of options. You can probably guess em.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) February 23, 2016
“We called ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, (he) absolutely accepted the fight – would love to take the fight. B.J. Penn said he wanted the fight.
“A lot of guys wanted this fight, but we ended up with Nate Diaz. We felt this was the fight to make and the fight the fans wanted to see.”
