The bigger question is why everybody handwaves away that Tony nearly lost at least half of those fights.
His streak was impressive because, for somebody watching him objectively, he wasn't really on another level compared to these guys, and may not even have been a top 5 fighter (the only two he beat were RDA and Cowboy). Thus the impressive part was that he was pulling off these wins, and pulling off is the correct word as rarely did he actually dominate any of them. He was pulling out wins after getting repeatedly dropped/10'8d, and so it was exciting and he was crazy, but that was causing overhyping to ignore those clear flaws.
He very well could've gone 6-6 and nobody would've ever talked about him. Which is to me why anybody seriously thinking he'd ever have beaten Conor/Khabib in 2016 are just being delusional. Not impossible but the favourite clearly wouldn't have been Tony given how much better Conor's standup/Khabib's grappling was. The writing was on the wall for the exact losses he ended up having.
Edwards meanwhile, last minute of Diaz nonwithstanding, actually is going out and dominating his opponents. He's clearly the superior fighter, but also is clearly coasting which is the issue. Nobody's going to get exciting watching someone do that. Even GSP, who people complained about's string of decisions, couldn't have that accusation launched against him as he clearly was at least still trying (watch how he punched the cage against Penn II in anger). You watch Edwards and either want him to actually start trying, or for somebody to actually push him to try.
