Faber’s legacy on the line this weekend
Saturday night’s bantamweight title shot against Dominick Cruz shapes up as the most important fight of Urijah Faber’s life. A…
Saturday night’s bantamweight title shot against Dominick Cruz shapes up as the most important fight of Urijah Faber’s life. A win over Cruz makes him unquestionably one the greatest of all time at the lighter weight classes, having won lightweight, featherweight and bantamweight titles in a handful of smaller organizations. On the flipside, if Faber loses, then he likely goes down in the annals of MMA as a pioneer; as the best 145-pounder prior to the arrival of Jose Also and the dawning of the UFC era.
In other words, he’ll be the general who led his army all the way to the enemy’s gates, but never got to enjoy the spoils once those walls fell. Nobody wants that.
By the time the UFC absorbed the WEC at the beginning of this year, Faber had lost his 145-pound crown to Mike Brown at WEC 36, and then failed in bids to get it back against both Brown and current champion Jose Aldo. A drop to bantamweight was the only option and to date the results have been pretty good.
Faber choked-out Takeya Mizugaki in his 135-pound debut last November, and then emerged with the W against Eddie Wineland three months ago, setting up the company’s first big time bantamweight main event this weekend.
