TORRANCE, Calif. – "I've gotten a lot of gray hairs, and I've had knee injuries and been knocked out a bunch, so I think I'm going to call it quits after this," Urijah Faber says with a smirk.
The former WEC champion and recent UFC title challenger fields questions from a group of reporters. He's obviously spent UFC 157 fight week answering the same questions – about his future, about those failed title bids, about rival Dominick Cruz and about his health and future in the sport – and to break up the monotony, he decides to try a different answer.
But then the 33-year-old laughs since he knows no one is buying the retirement talk anyway.
"Nah, I'm far from being done," he said. "My toughest fights have been decision fights with guys like Jose Aldo, Dominick Cruz, Renan Barao – and with facing adversity. I feel great. I feel amazing."
Faber, a longtime champ in the now-defunct WEC promotion, is 2-2 since his move to the UFC. The losses both came in title fights – to champ Cruz in 2011 and to Barao in a July interim title fight. On Saturday in a pay-per-view main-card bout at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., Faber (26-6 MMA, 2-2 UFC) meets Ivan Menjivar (25-9 MMA, 4-1 UFC) in a rematch of their 2006 bout at TKO 24 in Canada.
Faber was the WEC's biggest star – and for a long time. But despite two titles and a coaching stint on "The Ultimate Fighter" since his move to the UFC two years ago, he's taken a backseat to other 135-pounders.
He's still one of the sport's more recognizable faces, but this week, both men (co-headliners Dan Henderson and Lyoto Machida) and women (headliners Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche) have pushed his name down the marquee.
Faber, though, said it's been a week like any other.
"I think the difference is just a couple of minutes," he told MMAjunkie.com (
http://www.mmajunkie.com) of his interview schedule. "Someone goes right after me instead of right before me. It's all good. Same s---."
And for the fighter/author/businessman/gym owner/philanthropist, he's actually pretty excited to see the opposite sex get some attention in the octagon.
"I think it's pretty cool," Faber said. "This is definitely a historic event with two women in the main event for the first time ever in the UFC. You have an Olympic athlete and a military vet. It's a lot of the same storylines that you've seen throughput the history of our sport. It's good to see the women step in and do it big."
With the bantamweight division wide open, Faber vs. Menjivar should have a sizable impact on the title picture. While neither fight was clamoring for a rematch of the initial meeting, which ended in a TKO win for Faber after Menjivar landed an illegal kick, Faber said he's happy to get some resolution.
"I feel like it's definitely a fight that needed to happen again because it wasn't finished the right way," he said. "It was stopped by the doctor, and an illegal kick was thrown. [The cut] wasn't caused by the illegal kick, but it was thrown, and there was a cut that wouldn't allow the fight to continue. It was seven years ago. I'm not a guy who lives in the past ever, but I'm always looking forward to a good fight. And I think this will be a great one."
With Menjivar on a 4-1 run in the UFC and just a decision loss to Mike Easton, Faber could quickly regain top-contender status. He admits he wants to win a UFC belt, but this time around, he said having a good time is part of the process.
"I'm always thinking about a title shot," he said. "This is a sport that I've been in for 10 years, and I've always been at the top of my weight class. That's a testament to being athletic guy, being constant, persistent and always changing with the times. ... I'm just going to make the most of it and have fun with it."
Source: MMAJunkie.com
