UFC 136 Results: Did Gray Maynard Choke, or Did Frankie Edgar Show His Heart?

All Gray Maynard and Frankie Edgar talked about in the weeks leading up to UFC 136 Saturday night was how badly they wanted to beat the other and settle the score, and rightfully so, as Dana White had declared earlier in the week that a fourth fight would not take place, regardless of the the outcome.

Edgar wanted to prove that he did what men like White and even I thought he did at UFC 125 earlier this year, while Maynard set out to prove to the entire world that he should have won the the fight and the belt at UFC 125.

For the first round, it was unquestionable deja vu: Maynard again hurt Edgar, busting him open, and he again came within a hair of defeating Edgar by TKO, but again, Edgar would not deny himself of his chance to earn a victory over his rival.

Again, Edgar made it out of the first round without succumbing to defeat, and he did take Round 2 as he had done before. Round 3 became more clear than it was in January, as Edgar took it by landing more significant shots on the challenger Maynard, who took a more technical approach to the first round against the champion, and almost got the win because of it.

The fourth round, however, is where the whole game changed.

As Maynard has done to Edgar twice in almost 10 months time, so Edgar was able to do to Maynard in the fourth round, and the end result was two-fold: a laid out and defeated Maynard on one side of the fold, and a triumphant still-champion Edgar on the other side.

To put it simply, Maynard did what he had to do to hurt the champion, and he did it more technically than he did the first time, so there was no real adrenaline dump this time out; however, while some say Maynard choked simply because he did not finish Edgar in that first round, or simply perhaps because Edgar is not yet dethroned, the true reality of the matter is that Maynard did not prove that he chokes in big fights.

Actually, if Maynard did prove anything, he proved two truths about Edgar in this one performance:

One, he did prove, as he did in January, that Edgar can get rocked and can be hurt by a heavy shot. But in severely hurting Edgar while not going in too quick for the kill, he proved another thing true about Edgar.

If Maynard did not prove that he himself is capable of hurting any percentage of lightweight in his trilogy with Edgar, and if he didn't prove that he is worthy of being considered "elite" in the division, Maynard definitely proved that Edgar has the heart of a man that is worthy of being argued for in the debate over the undisputed pound-for-pound best Lightweight fighter in the world.

Of course, is Edgar still the undisputed best lightweight in the world, pound-for-pound?

Ask me that in a year, as Gilbert Melendez debuts in the UFC after perhaps the inevitable negotiations of either Shinya Aoki or Eddie Alvarez, and after either Clay Guida or Ben Henderson gets their shot at Frankie—and when all that has come and gone, then maybe I'll tell you how undisputed his claim really is.

Although, I must say, it's a hard claim to argue against right now—against the man who beat BJ Penn twice.