UFC champs Georges St-Pierre, Frankie Edgar fall short at 2010 ESPY Awards -- MMA Junkie

MMAjunkie.com

Well, there's always next year.

UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre (20-2 MMA, 14-2 UFC) and lightweight title holder Frankie Edgar (12-1 MMA, 7-1 UFC) each fell short in their bids to win a 2010 ESPY Award at ESPN's annual awards ceremony.

St-Pierre was nominated in the "Best Fighter" category, while Edgar's UFC 112 win over former champion B.J. Penn was up for an award as the year's "Best Upset." The results of the awards were announced on Wednesday night during a live ESPN broadcast.

St-Pierre lost out to boxing great Floyd Mayweather, who is now a three-time winner in the category.

It was St-Pierre's second nomination for an ESPY (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards). The Canadian MMA superstar was also nominated for the "Best Fighter" award in 2008, but Mayweather walked away with the prize that year, as well.

No mixed martial artist has ever won the ESPY for "Best Fighter," a category that was created in 2007 to replace the "Best Boxer" category that had been in place since 1993.

Meanwhile, Edgar's effort was bested by Northern Iowa's NCAA basketball tournament upset of No. 1-seeded Kansas. The University of Hawaii's college softball upset of a No. 1-ranked Alabama and 110th-ranked golfer Y.E. Yang's impressive victory in the 2009 PGA Tour Championship over 54-hole leader Tiger Woods were also nominated in the category.

Edgar's nomination represented the first for a mixed martial artist outside of the "Best Fighter" category.

Previous winners of the "Best Upset" category, which was introduced in 2004, include the U.S. men's national soccer team's June 2009 victory over Spain, and the 2008 Super Bowl victory by the New York Giants over the heavily favored New England Patriots.

The ESPY Awards, founded in 1993, honor the best achievements, moments and leading athletes of the previous year. The show aired live on ESPN for the first time since 2003 with "Saturday Night Live's" Seth Meyers as host.

The 2009 ESPY Awards featured Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva in the "Best Fighter" category, which was ultimately won by boxer Manny Pacquiao. St-Pierre was the lone MMA representative in 2008, while UFC fighters Randy Couture and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson were nominated in 2007 but lost to Mayweather.

Source: mmajunkie.com