It took 13 years for UFC legend Frankie Edgar to get finished in MMA.
The former UFC Lightweight Champion fought a murderer’s row across three weight divisions: lightweight, featherweight, and lastly, bantamweight, where he ended his career on a three-fight KO skid.
Frankie Edgar has taken leg kicks from the likes of Jose Aldo, gone toe-to-toe with the heavy-handed Chad Mendes and went the championship distance with BMF Champion Max Holloway in his ninth (and final) UFC title fight in 2019.
‘The Answer’ was knocked out several times toward the latter part of his 30-fight UFC run, with Brian Ortega the fighter to finally crack Edgar’s chin in 2018.
Across 36 fights, Edgar has only been stopped five times, two of the more brutal ones a flying knee from Cory Sandhagen and a front kick from Chito Vera.
Surprisingly, Sandhagen and Vera didn’t make the list for Edgar’s hardest-hitting opponents.
Frankie Edgar names hardest puncher and kicker he’s ever faced
Edgar saw stars in his iconic trilogy with former title challenger Gray Maynard.
Maynard nearly stopped Edgar multiple times across their fights, beating him in their first fight in 2008.
Their rematch ended in a draw after three knockdowns for Maynard and Edgar mounted a comeback TKO victory in their third bout at UFC 136 in 2011.
“[Hardest] puncher would probably be Gray,” Edgar said on the Champ and the Tramp Podcast.
“I mean, Chad Mendes probably hit pretty hard,” Edgar mentioned another former title challenger.
“But I didn’t really, he didn’t really touch me…”
Edgar TKO’ed Mendes in the first round of their featherweight bout in 2015.
“Kicker? I mean, Aldo kicked hard. Actually, Mendes kicked f—— hard,” Edgar continued.
“He might be up there with the hardest [kicker], actually,” Edgar said of Mendes.
“He got me [with] one [leg kick]. You have to counter right away. They know they hurt you. So he got me, boom, oh my God…. Like, oh, s—. He can crack…”
“Taking knees, never good… But the first up-kick by Benson Henderson, that one sucked,” Edgar said of the former lightweight champion who shut him out 2-0 in their title fight series.
“[Jose] Aldo never rocked me,” Edgar added.
Frankie Edgar was KO’ed by Cory Sandhagen and Chito Vera in the same year
Upcoming UFC title challenger Cory Sandhagen felt bad when he knocked out Edgar 28 seconds into the opening round with a devastating flying knee.
The hall of famer went straight to the canvas and Sandhagen had a frown on his face after his hand was raised.
After suffering arguably the worst KO of his career, Edgar returned against Chito Vera nine months later at UFC 268 in Madison Square Garden.
Vera scored a highlight-reel knockout of Edgar with a front kick to the face. A year later, Edgar was knocked out in his retirement fight against Chris Gutierrez at the same venue—an unfortunate end to a legendary MMA career.