Was a supposed Conor McGregor vs. Frankie Edgar fight going to be for a 165-pound title?

When Conor McGregor got on social media to announce that he was ready to step in on late notice to fight Frankie Edgar at UFC 222, many took his statement as bluster. But it appears there was indeed something to it. Edgar’s manager Ali Abdel-Aziz took to Twitter a few days ago to state that McGregor actually asked for the fight to be for a 165-pound title:

That seems very strange, obviously. But when McGregor’s teammate Artem Lobov was asked about it on The MMA Hour today, he didn’t dispute it. In fact, he said the bout was “very close” to happening;

“Very close...very, very close. It was real, 100 percent. Conor was ready to go, we were gathering the troops already, we were ready to go.”

According to Lobov, McGregor was already planning out his preparation for the fight:

“We were planning what we were going to do. We were just going to fly out to Vegas straight away to do a short little camp. Plans were in place and everything. Everything was ready to go. Conor wanted to fight. I was talking to him the whole time and he was ready to go and show the world what he can do.”

Apparently the UFC wasn’t down for it though, like McGregor stated originally:

“To the best of my knowledge, UFC weren’t really all for it because it was really short notice and it wouldn’t give enough time to build the fight. From what I heard, that was the main reason for it.”

Edgar will instead meet Brian Ortega in the co-main event of UFC 222 this weekend in Vegas. McGregor is continuing to negotiate his return to the UFC.