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Just a little nostalgic "what if" or roads-not-taken scenario that popped into my head for y'all.
So back in the day, following the 2010 WEC buyout, Pettis was promised an immediate title shot against UFC LW champ Frankie Edgar. But that fight got postponed in order for Edgar to settle his ongoing rivalry with Gray Maynard after their title bout went to a contentious Draw. Rather than sit on the sidelines, Pettis opted to remain active by taking what he probably thought would be a lay-up fight against Clay Guida... which resulted in Showtime being upset and temporarily derailed by Clay.
Imagine things had gone differently. For our purposes, we'll say Edgar got the Split Decision nod over Maynard in their title fight and there was no trilogy fight scheduled. Frankie spends the next several months healing up, jumps into a camp for Pettis, and the two face off in Summer of 2011. Who takes it?
Personally, I think Edgar takes it by reasonably competitive Decision. Pettis around this time struggled against the grinding wrestling pressure of Clay Guida and the relentless pressure-boxing of Jeremy Stephens. He also wasn't capable of putting either guy away -- not with his striking or his tricky defensive submission game. Edgar was a hard-nosed wrestler with good top control who never got submitted across his entire career -- despite fighting numerous dangerous grapplers and having to defend a lot of submission attempts. In his prime, he was also incredibly durable. Frankie knew how to push a pace with his takedowns and was a competent pressure-boxer, too. I think he probably eats some hard shots and is forced to defend various subs across 25 minutes... but ultimately he pressures Anthony to the fence, crowds his kicks, boxes him up a bit, and gets his takedowns and control time to fatigue Showtime before grinding out a win on the scorecards.
That being said, I'm open to hearing what others have to say.
Any mods happening by, feel free to throw a poll on here.
So back in the day, following the 2010 WEC buyout, Pettis was promised an immediate title shot against UFC LW champ Frankie Edgar. But that fight got postponed in order for Edgar to settle his ongoing rivalry with Gray Maynard after their title bout went to a contentious Draw. Rather than sit on the sidelines, Pettis opted to remain active by taking what he probably thought would be a lay-up fight against Clay Guida... which resulted in Showtime being upset and temporarily derailed by Clay.
Imagine things had gone differently. For our purposes, we'll say Edgar got the Split Decision nod over Maynard in their title fight and there was no trilogy fight scheduled. Frankie spends the next several months healing up, jumps into a camp for Pettis, and the two face off in Summer of 2011. Who takes it?
That being said, I'm open to hearing what others have to say.
Any mods happening by, feel free to throw a poll on here.
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