With Urijah Faber's career coming to a close this Saturday at UFC on FOX 22, theScore's Alexander K. Lee and Themistoklis Alexis make their case for how the longtime UFC contender's legacy compares to his peers.
Urijah Faber is one of the best lighter-weight fighters ever
Your position on Urijah Faber's legacy depends on factors beyond just his wins and losses. First, a few positive points:
- 9-6 in the UFC, 33-10 overall
- 21-1 to start his career
- 19-2 in non-title fights
- King of the Cage bantamweight champion (five defenses, later vacated)
- World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion (five defenses)
- Only fighter to defeat Dominick Cruz
And now one dubious, damning fact: He never held a UFC title despite being given four opportunities to win one. That's a record of futility unlikely to ever be broken.
That one statistic, however, shouldn't diminish what Faber did manage to accomplish in his 13-year career. People forget that the UFC didn't have a home for bantamweights or featherweights until 2011. That meant the best fighters competing under 155 pounds were either in Japan or wherever Faber was fighting.
Other than a loss to Tyson Griffin, "The California Kid" was the undisputed king of the little guys, knocking off the likes of former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver and current ONE Championship bantamweight titleholder Bibiano Fernandes. Admittedly, these fights were a lifetime ago in sports years, but they were the biggest bouts that could be booked at the time.
It's not as if Faber became a relic when he finally made it to the UFC. The matchmakers repeatedly paired him up with rising contenders, only to see the bantamweight stalwart brush them aside. Thus, they were often left with no choice but to put Faber in championship matches as other challengers were put aside for seasoning.
And perhaps that best sums up Faber's role in the MMA landscape: a popular fighter, yes, but more so a torch bearer for the smaller weight classes in the less decadent, pre-Conor McGregor times. Other than Cruz, McGregor, and Jose Aldo, few bantamweight or featherweight fighters can present resumes that compare to Faber's.
His reign at the top was as short as ... well, Faber, but reign he did, and even on the way down, he was still better than most.
The verdict: A top 10 fighter at 145 and 135 pounds
- Alexander K. Lee
Urijah Faber is a glorified gatekeeper
Faber has a pair of formerly talent-starved divisions to thank for his trumped-up resume.
During his reign as the WEC's featherweight champion, "The California Kid" defended the strap against the likes of journeyman Joe Pearson, the unheralded Chance Farrar, and Jeff Curran, who went a lackluster 2-4 under the promotional banner. Jose Aldo, eat your heart out ... right?
While he did score wins over Pulver and Cruz, "The Dominator" later put him through 10 rounds of "swing and a miss" in each of their UFC bantamweight title fights years later. And that's not even mentioning the pair of losses to Mike Brown that ended Faber's days as a featherweight champion.
When the Sacramento native was on top, talents like Cub Swanson and Ricardo Lamas were honing their chops on the promotion's preliminary cards, just two of a handful of legit UFC 145-pound contenders to come up after the promotions merged in late 2010. Once Swanson and Co. began to populate the UFC featherweight division, Faber conveniently joined its bantamweight counterpart - then painfully short on contenders - never locking horns with the hungry, homegrown WEC talents.
While Aldo fielded the likes of Lamas, Kenny Florian, and Chan Sung Jung in his lengthy run as featherweight king, Faber - who was treated to a clown suit and a healthy diet of leg kicks from Aldo at WEC 48 - faltered in title shot after title shot to Cruz and Renan Barao.
As for the 135-pounders Faber did beat, only Eddie Wineland and Michael McDonald have challenged for a title - both unsuccessfully - while Brian Bowles, Scott Jorgensen, and Ivan Menjivar received their walking papers long ago. His last three conquests? Frankie Saenz, Francisco Rivera, and Alex Caceres. Not exactly a trifecta of enticing prospects, much less world-beaters.
Faber's surfer-boy marketability and well-rounded game may have netted him a series of marquee matches, but he screwed the pooch when the stakes were highest and padded his resume with wins over a mixed bag of scrubs and battle-worn vets. Meanwhile, guys like Swanson and Jeremy Stephens went to war with the best at the expense of their records, which are comparatively unimpressive.
To put Faber's merits in perspective: When he does call it a career, the UFC bantamweight title picture - which runs through Cruz - will be none the wiser, as the new guard, a fraction of which Faber has tested, is nearing the peak of its powers. Aldo, on the other hand, has handily beaten every featherweight not named Conor McGregor and long ago cemented his place as the greatest 145-pounder to ever grace the earth.
"The California Kid" might own a cushy spot in every top 10 list pertaining to MMA's lighter weight classes, but the gift of hindsight will knock his status down a peg or three within the next few years.
The verdict: An overrated, but marketable fighter who benefited from a pair of underdeveloped divisions
- Themistoklis Alexis
Related - California Love: Urijah Faber's 5 greatest fights in the WEC
