With all the epic proportions of excitement to look forward to Saturday night, it’s easy to forget the insane match up featured on the TUF 22 finale card – Frankie Edgar vs. Chad Mendes. We have a former lightweight champion and featherweight title challenger taking on a three-time featherweight title challenger – it’s not often you have this amount of credentials in one Octagon. Edgar comes into the bout as the slight favorite at -125 while Mendes rests at +105.
The big question coming into this bout is whether or not Mendes can land his powerful punches on Frankie Edgar. Edgar will be the fastest and most agile fighter Mendes has faced; while Mendes’s accuracy is at an outstanding 49.5%, definitely expect him to be hitting less than that on the feet against Edgar. Even though Edgar has had problems eating big shots early on in fights, he has seemingly fixed this weakness as both Cub Swanson and Urijah Faber had troubles landing cleanly on Edgar. Look for Edgar to stay mobile, slide in and out, and never over-engage against Mendes in the pocket.
If Mendes can land clean on Edgar, he could definitely be in a position to either end the fight, or deal enough damage to win that round and perhaps the rest of the fight. As shown by his efforts against Jose Aldo in their second outting, Mendes rides his own momentum during fights – when he’s landing regularly, his cardio all of a sudden excels; when he’s getting beaten up – his momentum works against him and he fades. Edgar was able to consistently stay in control of his bout against Faber, and never let him gain any sort of momentum – if he can do this against Mendes, it will be a decisive victory for Edgar.
When it comes to wrestling, it’s easy to say that these two featherweights will cancel each other out. Looking at the stats, Mendes brings an outstanding 100% takedown defense rate into this bout while Edgar brings in 65%. Going off of this, expect Mendes to stuff Edgar’s takedown attempts (if any) while Mendes may be able to pull a few off depending on how well he can time Edgar’s quick feet. Even if Mendes can get Edgar down, don’t expect to see him hold Edgar down like he did to Conor McGregor; Edgar has explosive hips with spectacular scrambling ability. This fight between Edgar and Mendes will almost certainly be spent on the feet for 25 minutes, or until someone drops.
Verdict: Even though Mendes can end things with a well-time right hand (and he’s more than capable of landing it), I believe Edgar’s vast amount of championship experience will be on full display here as he stays out of trouble and uses his mobility to avoid Mendes’ powerful shots. Look for Edgar to tag Mendes with short 1-3 punch combinations and exit without taking much damage. If Mendes can get his takedown game working, he can try to slow Edgar down that way, but I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, look for this fight to go very similarly to Edgar’s 5-round fight with Urijah Faber, but with a little more action on the feet. Edgar will make Mendes miss, he’ll stay on his feet, and he’ll tag Mendes up and down to win rounds. He may run into trouble at some point in the fight, but Edgar is the master of recovering from damaging blows, and will most certainly come back to out-pace Mendes in the end.
Pick: Frankie Edgar via Unanimous Decision
