Amadi's Take
AMADI: Urijah Faber faces major risk/reward in potential 2011 title bout with Dominick Cruz
Dec 28, 2010 - 11:30:01 PM AMADI: Urijah Faber faces major risk/reward in potential 2011 title bout with Dominick Cruz

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By: Jason Amadi, MMATorch Columnist

In November of 2008, Urijah Faber lost the WEC Featherweight Championship to Mike Thomas Brown via TKO at 2:23 of the very first round. The loss would not only snap an impressive thirteen fight winning streak, but would also send "The California Kid" into an awkward limbo where he would alternate wins and losses for the next two years. Faber is currently coming off an impressive first round submission victory after a crushing loss in a championship fight, and there is talk of rushing him towards a title shot now against Dominick Cruz. Oddly, as we head into January 2011, this perfectly describes January 2009 and January 2010 for Faber.

It's quite obvious why Urijah Faber is almost always in the title picture. He's marketable, has a big name, a loyal following, is a top notch fighter, and is one of maybe five proven draws currently in mixed martial arts. With the bantamweight and featherweight divisions still flourishing, it's almost a no-brainer to keep someone who is far and away the biggest star competing in those divisions as close to the championship as possible. It becomes even harder to deny Urijah Faber championship opportunities when he turns in consistently entertaining performances where he is able to finish fighters who don't get finished, and make it look relatively easy in the process.

The problem is that with every victory that Faber's secured within the last two years, he's also suffered a major loss. After he defeated Jens Pulver for the second time, he dropped a five round decision to Mike Brown. After he strangled Rafael Assuncao, he took an absolute beating at the hands of Jose Aldo. Now with a win over Takeya Mizugaki, Faber finds himself with a possible title opportunity against Dominick Cruz. The UFC Bantamweight Champion is not unlike Jose Aldo, in that he is a fighter that no one has been able to figure how to fight, let alone defeat (now that he's dropped to bantamweight and developed a style that might give CompuStrike fits).

While Faber has a victory over Cruz, "The Dominator" has become an entirely different fighter with an entirely different style than when he and Faber met at 145 pounds. At 135 pounds, no one has come close to figuring out how to mount sustained offense against Cruz, including Faber's Team Alpha Male comrade, Joseph Benavidez, who stylistically is as similar to Faber as you can get.

The amount of risk Urijah Faber runs in taking all of these fights so quickly is admirable, but might not do him any favors should he be unsuccessful against Dominick Cruz. If Faber loses to Cruz, then he would be 0-4 in championship fights spanning from 2008 to 2011, and would make it beyond difficult to actually sell him in title fights moving forward, regardless of how unbelievably marketable he is and how dominant he is in non-title victory.