Edgar: I've evolved more than Aldo has since first fight
Frankie Edgar is looking forward to his second shot at beating Jose Aldo, even if Aldo is being awfully dismissive of his chances.
Speaking to reporters in Rio de Janeiro in April, Aldo boasted that their first fight at UFC 156 was not as close as Edgar has suggested, that he fought him with an injured arm, and that he has not seen "evolution" in him since then.
The two are set to meet again for an interim featherweight belt at UFC 200 on July 9 in Las Vegas.
Edgar is taking Aldo's comments in stride, understanding that this is how some fighters hype themselves now in the post-Conor McGregor world.
"You're seeing it across the board in all weight classes," Edgar told MMA Fighting. "Guys are getting more vocal. They're just seeing what it's done for Conor, so they're trying to kind of make their voice heard. I think that's what Aldo is doing.
"Arguably, you could say I haven't lost a round since me and Aldo fought. He's just been in some either pretty boring (fights), or wars since our fight. So, I think I'm the one who looks like he's evolved more than Aldo has. So yeah, I don't know. I think he's just talking the fight up."
Both Edgar and Aldo have found great success since they fought three years ago, but Aldo lost much of his luster when he was knocked out by McGregor in 13 seconds last December in a fight that cost him the featherweight championship.
Edgar wondered whether being dispatched so easily by McGregor after months of the Irishman verbally running Aldo down has done irreparable damage to the former champion's psyche.
"This guy is like I said. People are trying to talk. He's just not that great at doing it, you know?" Edgar said.
"He's just trying to create buzz, and I get what he's trying to do, but we all know he doesn't fight injured. The guy pulls out of fights every other fight, so he definitely doesn't fight injured. So we can just throw that one away. And everybody talks about how our fight was close. He wants to sit there and have this false sense of security? Maybe that's why he's trying to talk like this, because he's dealing with this knockout loss. But, by all means, go ahead and go in there super confident."