Urijah Faber announces retirement plans

Former WEC featherweight champion, multi-time UFC title challenger, and Team Alpha Male founder Urijah Faber appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour and discussed his retirement plans. He will fight Brad Pickett on December 17, at UFC on FOX 22 in his hometown of Sacramento, California, and then he will retire at age 37, after 14 years of fighting.

“I’ve been kind of waiting for this,” said Faber, as transcribed by Shaun Al-Shatti for MMA Fighting. “This is actually going to be my last fight. And it just feels right to do it in [Sacramento] in this new area. It just feels like the right time and the right place. I’ve been waiting for this new arena to be built, I was waiting for that Dominick Cruz opportunity, and I feel like this is going to be an epic event and I can’t wait to do it in front of the people I love.”

“I’ve been teetering with it for a long time. The thing is that I’m lucky. Like I said, I have my health and I really love what I’m doing. But just as far as the passion goes, I have a passion for what I’m doing still, but it doesn’t get the same emotion [out of me] that it has in the past. I remember my favorite fighter of all-time is Roy Jones Jr., and I remember him talking about him kind of feeling that, where he was playing little basketball games the same day as a boxing match.

“It took a long time to get to this point where I’m skilled enough and I’m in a position where I can fight and have a great time, but like my last fight, and my last couple fights, I haven’t found that emotional rise or fall. That is kind of a strange thing for me. I still love what I’m doing and that’s the reason why I’m doing it, but I just feel like this is going to be something that’s going to be an emotional thing for me, it’s going to be a passion thing. I’m going to train my butt off, and I just feel like right now is the right time.”

“With Frankie Edgar, I just was looking for bigger fights and hoping it was going to drum up more emotion. I went up a weight class and things like that. But, I mean, honestly, it’s like I said. I enjoy competing and I love to get out there and I feel like I could compete with anyone in the world, and it took me a long time to get like that. But it’s just changed for me a bit. And I’m hoping that I have that adrenaline, and the hair on my neck stands up for this fight, being in my hometown and being my last fight. That’s what I enjoy about this thing.”

“I’ve loved just being a part of other people’s success,” said Faber. “Even guys like T.J. — I enjoy the fact that T.J. and Chad and guys like Munoz and Scotty Jorgensen, all these guys that I helped get into the sport. And I’ve seen some of them go. I don’t know, I feel like it’s kind of like a perfect time for me to make an exit and work on building this team. I have some entertainment stuff I’ve been working on, shows and some movie stuff. I’ve got business stuff that I’ve been working on, but I’m most excited about growing the next generation of fighters, bringing multiple belts back to the Sacramento area. And I want to go out with a massive win against a great opponent in my hometown.”