Chael Sonnen Syndrome: Urijah Faber trash-talking his way to the WEC Bantamweight Title shot?
Posted on August 17, 2010, 09:20 AM by Anton GurevichWell, actually it's hard to call it a trash talk, but it looks like the former WEC Featherweight Champ and MMA legend Urijah Faber learned the lesson from Chael Sonnen's UFC 109 comments, and is now on his way for a title shot. Before Chael Sonnen's famous "pink t-shirt and earrings" rant, only a few MMA fans considered the Oregonian as the right man for a shot at Anderson Silva. But Sonnen's media warfare paid off, showing many other fighters a good way to get themselves noticed.
There's no problem in Faber rooting for his Team Alpha Male partner Joseph Benavidez to dethrone Cruz, and he really doesn't need an introduction to any casual MMA fan, but his public talk about how much he dislikes Dominick Cruz certainly looks like a good way to build up a future fight. Joseph Benavidez is a great fighter, who approaches Cruz with a lot of respect in the WEC 50 pre-fight interviews. I'm not sure if the stories about Dominick Cruz being kicked out of his house will help Benavidez to win this fight.
Two-and-Three in his last five fights, Urijah Faber was originally scheduled to face the Japanese Shooto veteran Takeya Mizugaki, but was forced to pull out due to an injury. Faber will now face Mizugaki probably in Octobar, what could define the next contender for the WEC Bantamweight title. I will be the first one to agree that Urijah Faber is more than a worthy contender for both Bantamweight and Featherweight titles, but attaining a "trash-talking tactics" is a huge step back for "The California Kid", in my opinion.
Comments
Uriah Faber is an idiot. Please dont call him a legend because Versuz made him a poster boy. Uriah never beat anyone credibla and everytime he had the big fight he would loooseee..I love his pace and endurance but boy please..Remember when he was supposed to be on top of the world and maybe move up to 155 UFC..jajaja....I wouldnt mind seing M.Torress smash him....All in all stay Humble and fight....
I wish people would stay humble and fight. I would be fine if all the talking was done in the cage.
Urijah is definetly a legend. He has beaten many great fighters and has shown more against Jose Aldo than anyone else as well as having done a great job in his second fight with brown nearly finishing him in the 4th with a choke but had broken hands unable to make a good enough clasp. He has only been dominated by one fighter and was less dominated by him than his competitor brown. He may not be your cup of tea but I assure you he is legit or else everyone but Aldo is a waste in WEC.
come on guys you know he just moved weight classes cause he knew he could never beat aldo
I agree respect is deserved sticking through the broken hand (wich we all saw the X rays for) but im not sure if his opponents were all that. But then again it was kind of a not so popular division few years back so who knowsssss....
Might be that he feels his size is a shortcoming at 145.
Thats exactly the case. Hes admitted to being a small 145 and that his optimum weight class would be 135 because thats the weight he wrestled in college. Hes never needed to cut to banta until now.
near 135 i should say
And get a haircut....
urijah sucks, can´t agree more with what SDL said
Unfortunately the truly humble fighter is hard to come by, especially one who is winning. Winning gives some the feeling of invincibility to some, which in my opinion is the worst thing that can happen to a fighter.
F being humble. Trash talking whether you like it or not creates more anticipation for fights. I wanna be amped up for a fight and when someone trash talks it makes it more interesting. This is a combat sport...trash talk and fighting go hand in hand so if you wanna see everyone make friends and shake hands then go watch golf or something cuz pretty much all sports have trash talking in them. And if trash talking is somehow WWE type crap then i guess theres a little WWE in all sports =] Gotta love it
You can sometimes rag YOUR opponent to hype the fight but this is Joes giht..Where is Joeas mouth @??
Urijah is a douche! i used to eb his fan , but its truth he was hype because he was the poster boy , Mike Brown ended that , and now Brown is not even the champion , the reason is that WEC is starting to get big , so more guys are comming and then all the champions will be no more than another guy on the division same thing happend to the UFC back in the day
" Legends " like Tito and Hughes were untouchable
but when UFC got main stream more fighters join and beat the then champions
Urijah is just making drama so he can get attention , because he knows he dosent stand a chance to win his belt back , Aldo teach him a lesson so now his dropping to 135 and talking bad about Cruz to get a title fight! Dominick will beat Benavidez then Urijah !
so Urijah stop talking shit about a guy who has done nothing to you.
he doesnt suck but i dont like him anymore. and people say he hasnt beat nayone but he guillotined cruz back way back when.
He is not just hype if he lasted to the 5th round with aldo. No one else has so then what do we have only one worthy fighter in WEC? Brown definetly proved his worth but of all his wins none were more contraversial than the fights with Faber. Like him or not he nearly finished brown with 2 broken hands and the first fight was an unlikely catch although they were legit wins they werent conclusive.
@DLS
Would you not watch just the fight? Do you really need all the talk back and forth? And no I'm not trying to convince you of anything. It's really just a question. I personally don't care if people like each other or hate each other. I just want to see who is better at fighting and that's what interests me the most.
aldo pulled a silva in that he prolly coulda finished urijah when he started gettin weak from leg kicks
Of course i want to see a fight......doesnt matter if fighters talk trash before or not cuz it always leads to a fight. But if they talk trash then it just makes you anticipate for the fight that much more. And in some cases the fights are much more exciting when you are completely pulling for one fighter.....thats why Silva vs Sonnen was so good. People either loved Sonnen or loved Silva, the fight was Sonnen GnPing Silva for 4.5 rounds and all you could think was "wow Sonnen is completely backing up everything he has been saying"...that fight was a good fight but the trash talk and build up made it Legendary
the Chael Sonnen Syndrome is way worst than that.
Why do you consider it a step back anton when he is going to attract more viewers?
i'm just saying that sonnen trash talk is inimitable
I'm just wondering if it's the way MMA is going to. Not really sure if it's good or bad... but the landscape is definitely changing.
Oh, and speaking about Urijah specifically... I'm a huge fan. And somehow for me it's disappointing to see him talking trash about someone, who's he event not fighting. So yeah, in this specific example it's a step back.
I agree and feel the same way.
Well, to be fair this may be the only time he has ever talked trash... The fact that it is about someone he is not fighting, just shows that its not hype at all. He just doesn't like the guy I guess.
I agree. Faber is just telling people he doesnt like Cruz its not like he said " Im gonna put him on his back and beat a hole in his face" he is not sonnen, and they arnt even fighting. the only thing that doesnt add up is cruz seems like a super nice guy, i saw the day and the life video thing and i became a fan just by watching that, cruz seems really easy going. but when does Faber ever hate on fighters? it all just seems weird to me
I agree with SDL 100% he was just a poster boy who was hyped up by a small organization to make money off of but when it came to fighting the best he lost...before that Brown fight he lost to Tyson Griffin and we all see how he's been doing. I just dont see Faber getting a belt in WEC or UFC unless he moves to a smaller organization h wont be touching anymore gold
tyson griffin is a bit bigger than him though as we can clearly see where he fights these days and that was a while ago too.
As far as the story about him being kicked out of his house, thats not something that Urijah made public first. He is referencing Cruz's interview in the Aug/Sept issue of the UFC Mag. Dominick tells that story just how Faber describes it. Which when u think about it in the context that Faber spoke on it, it is kinda funny really. Anyhow, I guess the bad blood stems back to their first meeting. Cruz was signed to fight Faber, who was then the featherweight champ, in his 2007 promotional debut. He said he noticed that he was not on any of the event posters. So Cruz said his way of leaving his mark on the posters was to sign his name across Urijah's face... Faber said that he viewed Dominick the same way as someone who tags a building. For those who do not know, Urijah retained his title submitting Cruz via guillotine choke at 1:38 of the first round.
Thank you Santosus.
naa man this divison is to much fun to watch these guys go for broke every time and there cardio is 2nd to none at this weight . dont be ignorant i bet you havent even watched the WEC
that look on uriahs face while being kicked by aldo is priceless lol