Urijah Faber believes bantamweight ‘is the most interesting this weight division has ever been’
Urijah Faber returned to the Octagon at UFC Sacramento and July after retiring years earlier. Even though he has been out for a while, he returned and scored a first-round knockout win over Ricky Simon in under a minute.
Now, the UFC Hall of Famer is set to scrap Petr Yan at UFC 245. Yet, many think he shouldn’t have taken this bout but it was a fight he wanted.
“This whole decision process to take this fight was me just telling these guys look, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to be in the mix,” Faber said on “UFC Unfiltered” (via MMA Junkie). “I want the top dogs. Who do you guys think are the top dogs? Who’s going to get me closest to fighting Cejudo for a belt. And Dana gave me a bunch of different options, guys that are ranked much lower, and he said you want to be in title contention then this is the guy. And I’m like, ‘All right, let’s do it.’ And he’s an exciting guy.”
With Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar also moving down in weight, he says this is the most exciting bantamweight has ever been.
“It’s exciting. I mean, this is the most interesting this weight division has ever been,” Faber. “You’ve got the up-and-coming guys like Aljamain (Sterling) and Petr Yan and Song Yadong and (Cory) Sandhagen and the list goes on of guys who we probably haven’t even heard of yet. Then you’ve got the current level guys like Cody Garbrandt … well, (T.J. Dillashaw is) out for cheating, of course, and then you’ve got the guys who have been in the mix.
“Jose Aldo, I’ve always said he’s one of the pound-for-pound best fighters, and 12 years undefeated and beating all these top-level guys. And then you have Frankie Edgar, who’s a legend of all legends, and I’m coming out of retirement. It’s like, man, this is just a rich weight class right now. It’s an exciting time to be a part of it. And it’s one exciting time to know that I’m still in the mix.”
Do you agree with Urijah Faber?
