If there is one phrase that perfectly sums up UFC 240's main event, a featherweight title fight between Max Holloway and Frankie Edgar, it might be: Here we are again.
Here we are again at this matchup, which the UFC scheduled in 2017 and 2018, only to see it fall through both times due to injury.
Here we are again with Edgar, who has a chance to dethrone a dominant champion from Hawaii in a bout very few think he can win (as was the case when he fought BJ Penn in 2010).
And here we are again with a Holloway championship fight week in Canada. Three of his six UFC title fights have taken place in that country, and the relationship between a kid from Waianae, Hawaii, and the Great White North has turned into one of the sport's most improbable love affairs.
This event, which takes place on Saturday in Edmonton, Alberta, finds itself caught between UFC 239, the promotion's big International Fight Week card earlier this month in Las Vegas, and next month's UFC 241, which is headlined by heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier and also features the return of Nate Diaz. Because of that juxtaposition, this weekend's modest fight card could easily be overlooked.
For the two men involved in the main event, however, Saturday's fight is a critical matchup. Edgar is a guaranteed future Hall of Famer, and he and his team insist he has a lot left at age 37. But his iconic lightweight championship win over Penn was nine years ago. He did successfully retain his belt through three defenses, but since then he has come up short in four title fights. This might be his last chance to be a champion.
Holloway is coming off his first loss in more than five years -- a unanimous-decision defeat to Dustin Poirier in April in a bout that, had he won, would have set him up to face undefeated lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.
As much as the storylines feel familiar going into UFC 240, the ramifications of this matchup are unique to these men and this time in their careers.
By the numbers
1: UFC champions who have defended a belt coming off a loss. Holloway, who fell short against Poirier in a lightweight interim title fight three months ago, is seeking to join Penn, who, while lightweight champ in 2009, made an unsuccessful bid for Georges St-Pierre's welterweight belt. Six months after that TKO loss, Penn successfully defended his 155-pound strap with a fourth-round submission of Kenny Florian.
8: UFC title fights for Edgar, who reigned at lightweight from 2010 to 2012 and challenged for the featherweight belt in his 145-pound debut in 2013 and also for an interim strap three years later. If Edgar wins the title Saturday, he would become the eighth fighter in UFC history to win championships in multiple divisions.
1,808: Significant strikes in the UFC for Holloway, the most in the promotion's history. The total includes his fights not at featherweight. Edgar has the fourth most, 1,463, behind Michael Bisping's 1,567 and Donald Cerrone's 1,518.
83: UFC rounds fought by Edgar, the most in UFC history. Demian Maia has fought in 82. Edgar also ranks first in time spent in the Octagon: 6 hours, 47 minutes and 33 seconds. Rafael Dos Anjos is second at 6:28:11.
1: Takedowns surrendered by Holloway in his last 11 fights. Edgar has 67 takedowns in his UFC career, fifth most in history, according to UFC Stats.
Source: ESPN Stats & Information
A look back (just a few months)
A look back (almost a decade)
Five vs. five
Fighting words
After the UFC's second attempt to pit Holloway against Edgar, at UFC 222 in March 2018, was scuttled when Max pulled out because of a leg injury, Frankie accepted a replacement opponent, Brian Ortega -- and lost by first-round knockout. Afterward, Holloway sent a consoling message on social media to his would-be challenger:
You had nothing to gain from taking that fight @FrankieEdgar. But you took it you defended what you already earned. There's no belt for sacrificing everything but true fans and Jersey knows no belt can outshine what you bring to the sport. Chin up bratha
— Max Holloway (@BlessedMMA) March 4, 2018
Dom & Gil's film study
And the winner is ...
It's a quick turnaround for Holloway, whose grueling five-round battle with Poirier feels like yesterday. It's also his first trip back to 145 pounds since December. Holloway has repeatedly said the weight cut is no problem, but it's worth noting the jump he has made to 155 and now back to 145 this year. Edgar is perennially underrated, and I'm giving him a real shot to win, but it's hard to pick against Holloway at featherweight. Brett Okamoto's pick: Holloway via decision.
Caesars sportsbook: Holloway -420, Edgar +330
Waiting in the wings
Taking a wild guess here, but let's go with Alexander Volkanovski. You know, the 20-1 Aussie riding a 17-fight win streak -- the most recent victory being a dominant decision in Brazil over Jose Aldo, the legend who owns two victories over Edgar. This weekend's title fight should have been Volkanovski's, by all rights. The UFC can't overlook the 30-year-old again, can it?
What to watch for (beyond the main event)
Women -- and eras -- collide
Felicia Spencer made her professional MMA debut on Sept. 12, 2015. At that point, her opponent this Saturday, Cris Cyborg, was a decade into her career and was riding a 15-fight unbeaten streak. The Brazilian had already been featherweight champion in Strikeforce and was the reigning champ in Invicta FC. It was between her and Ronda Rousey for Baddest Woman on the Planet.
Will this meeting at the crossroads turn into a changing of the guard in favor of the 28-year-old Spencer (7-0), herself a former Invicta 145-pound champ? Or will Cyborg (20-2, 1 NC), 34, use this fight to catapult herself into a rematch with Amanda Nunes, who took her belt last December in a 51-second firefight?
A few scary Cyborg facts to chew on:
Her loss to Nunes snapped a 21-fight unbeaten streak.
Of her 20 career wins, 17 have come by KO/TKO, 10 in the first round.
Her 4.56 significant strike differential is the highest in UFC history, according to UFC Stats.
One of these guys might make a name for himself
Aside from Cyborg and the main event combatants, there is no one on this card who anybody but the diehards would call a name fighter. But that could very well change in the prelims when Alexandre Pantoja, who is No. 5 in the ESPN men's flyweight rankings, meets sixth-ranked Deiveson Figueiredo.
Pantoja (21-3), a 29-year-old from Rio de Janeiro, has had first-round finishes in his last two fights. Figueiredo (15-1), who is 31 and fights out of Soure in the state of Pará, Brazil, has had finishes in 13 of his 15 wins. Neither man has been finished in his career.
Figueiredo has the best striking defense in UFC flyweight history, having absorbed just 1.7 significant strikes per minute in the cage. But Pantoja lands 4.5 per minute, the most among active UFC flyweights. (Thanks for digging up those numbers, ESPN Stats & Information.)
With the 125-pound division seemingly being resuscitated, this fight could propel the winner toward unforeseen opportunity.
Nickname of the night
Oh yeah, one more thing about that men's flyweight prelim: It's a battle for this distinguished honor. Pantoja is known to his (brave human) friends as "The Cannibal." Figueiredo answers to "Deus Da Guerra" (Portuguese for "God of War"). Shall the best deity or man-eater win.