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#2 UFC Bantamweight Division: Cory Sandhagen vs. Frankie Edgar

Cory Sandhagen could become the top contender for the UFC Bantamweight title with a win over Frankie Edgar.

If the main event could decide the next challenger to the UFC Heavyweight title, so this fight could decide the next challenger for the UFC Bantamweight title. Champion Petr Yan is set to defend against Aljamain Sterling in March, but after that? One of these two could definitely step up.

Of the two, Sandhagen is certainly the more proven in this division. Arriving in the UFC in 2018, The Sandman has been almost perfect. He’s picked up six wins and has only ever lost to Sterling, who realistically is probably the best 135lber on the planet right now.

A striker by trade, Sandhagen is a product of the famed Elevation Fight Team, and he’s gone toe-to-toe with the likes of John Lineker, Raphael Assuncao, and Marlon Moraes in his UFC tenure, beating them all.

His win over Moraes was clearly his best to date, as the former UFC title challenger was felled in the second round with a spectacular spinning wheel kick.

Sandhagen isn’t just a striker, though. He’s also a solid grappler with three submission wins to his name and has survived the dangerous Iuri Alcantara on the ground in his second UFC fight.

Edgar’s game doesn’t need breaking down now. A veteran of the UFC since 2007, the former UFC Lightweight champion is one of the few surviving ‘wrestleboxers’ who were so common at the turn of the last decade.

The Answer has outlasted the likes of Tyson Griffin and Gilbert Melendez, though, primarily because his game wasn’t as straightforward as theirs. Sure, he’s a wrestleboxer, but his footwork, movement, and ability to both avoid big shots and to absorb them has always been superior to his contemporaries.

But Edgar is now 39 years old. And while he defeated Pedro Munhoz in his debut at 135lbs, it was a remarkably close fight that could’ve gone either way.

Edgar’s problems at 135lbs are likely to be two-fold. Firstly, at his advanced age, he’s no longer as quick as he once was and can no longer take the kind of shots that he could in his youth.

And more to the point, the speed advantage that served him so well at Lightweight isn’t as telling at Bantamweight. And that should be worrying for him here.

Sandhagen hits far harder than Munhoz, and it’s arguable that The Sandman is quicker than the Brazilian, too.

Edgar is a great fighter and should definitely go into the UFC’s Hall of Fame at some point, but the truth is that his best days are behind him. Sandhagen meanwhile, is in his prime, and so I suspect he’ll run through Edgar here to cement himself as a top contender in the division.

The Pick: Sandhagen via first-round TKO