How can you not be romantic about MMA when fighters like Frankie Edgar succeed?

A thunderous left-hook sends him crashing down to the mat. Dazed, he stumbles back to his feet as he's swarmed and blasted with more ferocious strikes.

The gameplan goes out the window as he enters survival mode, desperately changing levels for a half-hearted takedown attempt that only results in more punishment as he gets caught with an uppercut on the descent. Upon realising that this wasn't his brightest idea, he gets back to his feet, but leaves an opening for another haymaker to connect and drop him again. His back gets taken and the onslaught continues. Their first fight went the full 25, this one looks like it could be stopped after just two minutes. The desperation mounts as he continues to look for a way to continue, not an exit route, but rather a path towards making this competitive. He gets back to his feet briefly, turns away from his opponent, takes another couple of shots and he's back down again. He sinks into the fence, digs his heels in and tries to stand, but the hulking mass of his much larger opponent smothers him and forces him back to the ground where he can start teeing-off again. It's bread and butter time. He wrestles his way back to his feet, turns his tiring opponent against the cage and gets the hell out of Dodge, ducking to avoid another swinging left hand as he backs up to get a brief recess from the danger. Another takedown attempt proves unsuccessful, but he's able to break up the clinch and create some much-needed breathing room. The intake is met with an uppercut, a left hand, another right and he's reduced to floundering in a sea of disorientation on the ground. Back up, down again. The military drum inside his chest cavity now beats with an increased tempo. He gets back to his feet again, but this time he's finally fighting back. The mind is willing, but his body is failing rapidly. He throws a combination, losing his balance on the follow-through and nearly taking another unplanned trip to canvas-ville. He's a lot more sure-footed now. The bell sounds signifying the end of the first. It was a 10-8 round at the very least, if not a 10-7. Frankie Edgar was dropped six times in the opening round of his second fight against Gray Maynard. He picked himself up, regained his composure and fought his way to earn a draw. In their third fight, Edgar removed all doubt by knocking Maynard out in the fourth round. In a sport full of tough guys, they don't come much tougher than the Answer. He has been dealing with adversity for his entire career. After being snubbed at the tryouts for season five of the Ultimate Fighter, a month later he accepted the call to take on Tyson Griffin in his promotional debut. He won that fight via unanimous decision. Edgar has never been finished, all four of his professional losses have been closely fought and he has an unparalleled method of coping with adversity that gives him this heightened ability to absorb damage and keep moving forward. No matter how hard he gets hit, he always comes back swinging. He followed up his first ever loss to Maynard with five consecutive wins, two of which came against BJ Penn, arguably the greatest lightweight ever, to claim and subsequently defend the 155 lb belt. An impressive feat for a fighter people have been suggesting would be better suited to the bantamweight division. A firm upkick to the dome changed the course of his defence against Benson Henderson, but again, he kept scrapping until the end where lesser fighters might have buckled. Following the loss, he got straight back up on the horse and took an instant rematch which, unfortunately for Edgar, two of three judges didn't see as his win and so the page was turned to a new chapter in the featherweight division. His first task was not an enviable one - trying to dethrone Jose Aldo, the only champion the 145 lb division ever had, a man who had been undefeated for eight years. Even with all the odds stacked against him in his featherweight debut, Edgar still went the distance and came pretty damn close to finding the answer. https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/674630634220990464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Edgar bounced back from that loss by becoming a more complete fighter, graduating from the hybrid wrestler-boxer to a master of movement and range, a style that is currently trumping most others in modern MMA. This tendency of responding to a loss by improving his overall game has become a recurring theme of his career. While Edgar was collecting scalps for his collection with his trademark blue-collar humility and that fan-favourite never-say-die approach to the art of fighting, the landscape of the sport was changing. Conor McGregor's acerbic-tongue and brash self-promoting style changed the game. McGregor's captivating psychological warfare outside the cage coupled with his beguiling striking-heavy style inside it had a lot of positive effects on the sport, mainly attracting more eyes, particularly to the flourishing Irish scene. However, it impacted negatively on fighters who quietly go about their business and let their fists do the talking. Fighters like Frankie Edgar. With McGregor's stock continuing to rise, Edgar's personal fight to thrust himself into the title frame became tougher, but he embraced the challenge with both hands wound up, ready to strike. Cub Swanson, who had been on the tear in the division notching up six consecutive wins, was promised a title shot if he defeated Edgar at UFC Fight Night 22. Aside from his impressive win streak, it's also worth noting that Swanson had a pretty intense beef with McGregor on Twitter at the time. Edgar won and they passed over him. Meanwhile, McGregor was granted his crack at Aldo a few months later after defeating Dennis Siver. Next up for Edgar was Urijah Faber, who would later go on to coach opposite McGregor on the Ultimate Fighter. The California Kid looked likely to get the nod to take on the winner of Aldo v McGregor if he won. He didn't, but Edgar wasn't deemed deserving of the same reward. The real slap in the face came when Aldo suffered that rib injury ruling him out of UFC 189's main event. Chad Mendes was chosen to save the show and slug it out with the Notorious for the interim strap. This was despite the fact that if Mendes had won, his prize would be a title unification bout against a man he had lost to twice before, the most recent of which came less than a year before the event. Edgar, whose first test against Aldo came over two years before 189 and had been riding a four-fight win-streak at the time was left waiting for a call that would never come. https://www.instagram.com/p/4SiKR3k3H9/?taken-by=frankieedgar It looked like McGregor's reluctance to defend his featherweight belt would mean that Edgar's knockout victory over Mendes would only result in him being left out in the cold again. But luckily, the UFC matchmakers had a solution to keep everyone content. Edgar has actively tried to avenge every loss on his record and at UFC 200, he'll have an opportunity to seek retribution for another one of those pesky results in the loss column when he takes on Aldo for the interim strap. It also marks a golden opportunity to add another line to his entry in the UFC history books by becoming just the third fighter since the promotion's inception to have held two belts in two separate divisions, following in the footsteps of BJ Penn and Randy Couture. No route to the top in this game is a primrose path, but Edgar's second run at featherweight seemed thornier than most. Although, it seems appropriate that an athlete who has a penchant for thriving under adversity found the road that's well trod upon, but one that few have endured until the end.