UFC
Humbled Cub Swanson thanks Frankie Edgar for the "lesson" at UFC Fight Night 57: "He exposed me"
Nov 23, 2014 - 10:35:20 AM Humbled Cub Swanson thanks Frankie Edgar for the "lesson" at UFC Fight Night 57: "He exposed me"

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

A humbled Cub Swanson tried to keep his spirits up on Saturday night after getting beaten up and finished by Frankie Edgar at UFC Fight Night 57, but it wasn't easy.

The clearly dejected featherweight joined Fox Sports 1 for a brief post-fight interview, and gave Edgar credit for showing him he wasn't quite as good as he thought he was coming into the night.

"Obviously it was super frustrating," Swanson said. "But he did what he had to do. He exposed me. I was super confident, I thought I prepared, and obviously I underprepared. I want to thank him for a lesson, and I want to be better."

"[He showed me] where my weaknesses are. He was able to expose it. I took this fight because I felt he was one of the best in the world at a lower weight class, and I wanted to test myself. I'm getting up there in age, and I wanted to see how bad I am. I know I took a beating, but I was still hopeful all the way to the end."

As to the finish, which came with four seconds left in the fight as Edgar locked on a neck crank, Swanson says he'd taken so much damage to his jaw during the fight that he didn't want it to break in that hold, so he tapped.

"Yeah [I knew there was five seconds left], but he landed a lot of elbows to my jaw, so my jaw was pretty tired," Swanson explained. "And then when I kept turning, turning, turning, I was like 'he's not going to finish me, nope,' and he had it, like my mouth was open, and he cranked my jaw pretty hard, and I don't want a broken jaw again, I've live through that. So you know, oh well."

"If you want to be the best, sometimes you get the raw end of the deal. It's life."

Penick's Analysis: It was a rough night for Swanson. Edgar kind of broke his will a little bit by the midway point of the fight; and when he kept getting planted on his back and couldn't get out, it was all he could do to survive and try to keep Edgar out of the most dominant positions. He managed to do so for a while, escaping back to half guard several times after Edgar had him mounted or when he took his back, but Edgar was absolutely relentless. Ultimately, the damage done by the ground and pound made way for that finish. Swanson's going to be down on himself for falling short of his goal of a title fight, but Edgar simply proved he belongs in the conversation still as one of the elite fighters in this division.