Urijah Faber expects title contender status with UFC 245 win: ‘Only reason why I’m taking this fight’
LAS VEGAS – Urijah Faber thinks he should be considered next in line for the bantamweight title if things go well for him this weekend.
The former WEC champion is gearing up to take on young contender Petr Yan on Saturday at UFC 245. The bout with Yan (13-1 MMA, 5-0 UFC) will mark Faber’s second fight since coming back from retirement in July with a first-round TKO win over Ricky Simon. The 40-year-old Faber believes he should enter title contention status if victorious over Yan.
“It puts me in position to fight for a world championship,” Faber told MMA Junkie on Wednesday. “I’m not here to fight every Joe Schmo. This guy is a legit contender, somebody that’s been taking out guys and has a lot of hype behind his name. (UFC president Dana White) actually gave me a couple of different options, and he said, ‘What it looks like for title contention, this is the guy you should fight.’ And I was like, ‘All right, let’s do it.’
“I look at Petr Yan and see who stacks against him, and I don’t think there are many guys that are fit to beat a guy like this. Aljamain (Sterling) because of his wrestling, possibly, but Yan is no joke when it comes to wrestling. I’ve seen him try to take down guys, and he’s got a good jiu-jitsu game.
“This is the only reason why I’m taking this fight. Dana said, ‘If you want to be in title contention, here’s a couple of guys that are there and take one out.’”
Yan is a fairly new commodity to the UFC’s 135-pound division if you compare him to Faber’s tenure with the promotion. The 26-year-old Russian joined the UFC in the summer of 2018 and has racked up five straight wins since. Despite the novelty surrounding Yan, Faber (35-10 MMA, 11-6 UFC) has kept a close eye on him since the very beginning.
“He had fought one of our guys, Teruto Ishihara. I wasn’t in the corner, but I was present for that fight,” Faber said. “I keep my eye on the guys, and he’s got a good skillset, and I think he’s an Olympic-level boxer as an amateur is what he says, or they call it Master of Sports over in Russia. He’s been trying to do this mixed martial arts thing for five years now, so he’s a young guy, and he’s well rounded. He comes for real. He goes in for the kill, and I like that.”
It’s hard to deny that the UFC’s bantamweight division is the most exciting it’s been in a while. Faber believes this is the time to be a bantamweight if one is looking to make MMA history.
“Everything is coming back together,” Faber said. “This is the time to be in the division if you want to be in the history books. I talk about how exciting it is for me – a guy that’s been 16 years in the game and having fought guys that started at the very beginning of the UFC brand with Jens Pulver, the first ever (UFC lightweight) champ, and you know, fighting guys like Petr. He will fight however long. This can be a long time like the (six) degrees of Kevin Bacon.”