Ben Edwards suffers first defeat in PFL heavyweight tournament

This is the first defeat of his mixed martial arts career. It robs him of an opportunity he was desperate to make the most of in the Professional Fighters League's prized heavyweight tournament.

The unanimous decision loss at the hands of Francimar Barroso has Edwards considering his next move in the bowels of Atlantic City's Ocean Resort Casino on Friday (AEST).

The setback sees the 35-year-old (4-1) bow out of the PFL tournament, leaving Barroso (24-7-1) to go in search of the $1.4million (AUD) prize on offer for the victor.

Just what comes next remains to be seen.

"PFL president Ray Sefo spoke to me in the cage afterwards and he was really happy. He said he'll talk to us later about future fights and he seemed pretty positive about it," Edwards said.

First Edwards will have to start planning a wedding after he and partner Carly got engaged a day out from the fight.

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"I took her down to the beach and said I wanted to get some sand in my toes, but I didn't take my shoes off so that was the first red flag," Edwards laughed.

"We went up on the pier, my heart started racing, she started crying, it was awesome. It ended up being perfect."

But he will enter the next phase of his career knowing what he needs to improve.

Never before had Edwards been taken down. It happened twice in the opening round, once in the second and again in the third.

Only once before had Edwards been forced to go into the second round - but that, just like his first three fights, ended with a triumphant knockout.

The third round was uncharted territory.

Having spent the bulk of the bout on his back defending submission attempts and strikes, Edwards had to go for broke - the fact it was his only shot to advance gave him little alternative.

But a takedown followed once more, and an inadvertent headbutt on the way down split Edwards open. He would finish the bout on top, but ultimately a late flurry of strikes on the ground came to no avail.

"I'm definitely disappointed but I was pretty happy, I survived on the ground with a black belt," Edwards said.

"In the third round I started to get the hang of what I was supposed to be doing. The worst thing was I clipped him hard early and just saw red a little bit, and I started looking for the knockout shot.

"We knew that was what he was going to do, but to do it in a live situation is totally different to training.

"We'll learn a lot from it. I got 15 minutes of experience there, I think I had had less than 15 minutes total MMA time before that."

The fact this was Edwards' lone chance to force his way into the quarter-finals seems unjust, but it is unfortunately just that - fact.

While his rivals had two regular season bouts designed to earn points from which they would be seeded for the playoffs, Edwards had one.

His first scheduled bout fell through the cracks in a roller coaster camp, the likes of which Edwards had scarcely seen in more than 60 fights across three disciplines.

First came the ill-fated appointment at the United States consulate in Sydney when Edwards went searching for a visa.

Then came the fascia tear which ultimately put a line through his name in early June, one that left him in shock.

Now comes the defeat. In just his fifth MMA fight, Edwards gave it everything against the vastly more experienced Brazilian but found himself on the wrong side of the judges' scorecards.

And so we await the comeback.