Mendes on Frankie Edgar: ‘See if he can handle my power that night’

Often when two fighters with great wrestling backgrounds get matched in MMA, the fight turns into a stand-up war. The two wrestlers often nullify the takedowns from one another and end up just banging it out.

Chad Mendes spoke with Submission Radio and said he feels like he has the upper hand both in wrestling and striking power over his opponent, former lightweight champion, Frankie Edgar (transcribed by Fox Sports):

“I don’t think the wrestling is going to cancel out at all. I mean, I feel like my wrestling is better than his.”

With Edgar fighting Mendes’ teammate Urijah Faber, the Team Alpha Male stars have been studying the fight closely.

“He’s a great MMA wrestler, he’s good at timing, but I feel like — obviously he just fought Urijah Faber (who was Edgar’s most recent opponent). I train with Urijah every single day. And so I have insight. Like, I know what he’s going to be feeling like in certain positions. I’ve been training a lot with Urijah on Frankie, feeling this out. We’ve sat down with coaches and game planned over stuff, setting all that stuff up. So I feel very confident. I feel like my wrestling, obviously I’m gonna be looking to mix it up everywhere with this fight. I mean, a guy like him is what you have to do. You have to mix it up all over. If you’re sticking with one little thing, he’s going to end up picking you apart, or switching stuff up on you. So nah, I don’t think the wrestling’s going to cancel itself out.”

Mendes said he sees holes in Edgar’s game and is looking to capitalize on them.

“I think my power is the big difference between us. He has a lot more output, he uses more volume punches, but you know, there’s a lot of mistakes that I see, that he makes when he’s in there, throwing punches,” Mendes commented.

“So I think someone like me, who’s fast, explosive, powerful, can be a big danger for someone like him, that’s coming in a lot and loves to be in the pocket, [where] you get hit with big punches. Obviously we’ve seen him take some big punches and keep going, but we’ll see if he can handle my power that night. So we’ll find out very soon.”

Who do you see winning this exciting matchup of top contenders? Sound off in the comment section below!