According to a Feb. 1 report from ESPN, UFC 156's Frankie Edgar will have his thoughts and prayers with New Jersey's Hurricane Sandy victims when he squares off against Jose Aldo on Feb. 2 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nev.
“I feel great, maybe better than ever,” Edgar said. “And I think I’m going to take this fight because I did everything I had to do to make sure my hand gets raised Saturday night. I feel like a man possessed.
“It gives the people who are still struggling -- even my friends who still don’t have their businesses open -- a little slice of the pie. It gives them a chance to say ‘we’re building back up, and it starts with the title.’”
Edgar is a native of New Jersey, an area that was among the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy.
“It just goes to show you that anything can be taken away in the blink of an eye,” Edgar said. “It puts things in perspective.
“It shows that there is a lot more to life than fighting. Obviously this week and the magnitude of this fight kind of takes your whole life over. But something like that [Sandy] where you see people losing their homes, losing their lives, goes to show you that this is just a small piece of what you have.”
Edgar did not lose his home during Hurricane Sandy, but some of his friends and family weren't so lucky.
“Seaside, which is over the bridge from where I live, and some areas along the water, where I live, are totally decimated,” Edgar told ESPN.com. “My mother-in-law’s house got condemned. They had to knock it down a couple of weeks ago.
“A lot of people lost a lot of stuff. I’ve got friends and family who own businesses along the shore, and they can’t make any money right now.”
Edgar fights Jose Aldo in the main event of UFC 156, which is slated for Feb. 2 in Las Vegas. A victory over Aldo would make Edgar the UFC's new featherweight champion of the world.
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