There’d been hints in the last week that the UFC might be lining up a big fight to front the TUF 22 Finale in Las Vegas on December 11th and that’s proven to be true with two featherweight top contenders Frankie Edgar and Chad Mendes now installed as the shows headliner.
The TUF 22 Finale event comes just one day before the enormous featherweight title fight between Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor at UFC 194 and so you’d have to think that, barring an immediate rematch between those, that the winner of Edgar and Mendes would then go on to face the winner for the belt.
Formerly the UFC’s lightweight champion, Edgar lost to Aldo by unanimous decision in his first ever fight at 145lbs back in February of 2013, but since then he’s compiled a four-fight winning streak in the division, defeating a number of big name opponents along the way including BJ Penn, Cub Swanson, Charles Oliveira and most recently Urijah Faber.
That’s left him placed at No.2 in the featherweight rankings, just one place above Mendes who’s coming off a TKO loss to Conor McGregor in a huge fight at UFC 189.
The fact that Mendes had taken the fight on extremely short notice and was on top for most of the first ten minutes against McGregor before getting caught means that he’s still very much in the thick of things at the top end of the division heading into this bout.
The TUF 22 Finale will serve up a double bill of quality lightweight action alongside the featherweight Edgar Vs Mendes headliner with Khabib Nurmagomedov’s return against Tony Ferguson also scheduled for the main card together with Joe Lauzon Vs Evan Dunham.
