Urijah Faber remains committed to full-contact skydiving – even though it's fake

With more than 1.2 million views on YouTube, it appears Full Contact Skydiving could prove an instant sporting sensation – if it were real.

UFC 175 fighter and former WEC champion Urijah Faber, who had remained silent on his role in the apparent start-up sport, admitted to MMAjunkie that. as many suspected, the video is indeed satire.

“We’ve been doing this whole campaign with AMP Energy – no bull, just energy,” Faber told MMAjunkie. “A lot of these energy drink competitors are always over-promising on these extreme things, so we kind of took it up a notch in a documentary-type deal. But it’s fun.”

AMP Energy officials went as far as creating an official website for the faux league, as well as social media accounts. According to “official” documents, full-contact skydiving would feature two competitors essentially engaging in an MMA fight while in a free fall after jumping out of a plane. For more than 10,000 feet, they fight until the final horn – when the rules say they have to pull their chutes by the time they hit 4,000 feet.

Faber said he was heavily involved in the production of the video and helped shape the concept of the promotional parody.

“It was all ad-lib,” Faber said. “We took a bunch of the MMA stuff that is real and tried to do it in the sky. You think about concepts, like in a blast-double where you’re taking a shot and shooting through a guy and taking him down. In the air, you just keep going. So we were trying to be practical about what would and wouldn’t work if we were actually fighting in the sky. That was pretty funny.

“As far as the interviews go, we were all busting up. It was hilarious. We were just shooting from the hip and ad-libbing the whole thing. Everybody had to kind of bite their lip while the interviews were going on because there was some pretty funny stuff talking about this new, crazy sport.”

Ironically, as the fake sport continued to shape, Faber actually began to consider if it could ever actually work.

“We were going through all the moves and finding out what would and wouldn’t work,” Faber said. “We wanted the video to be believable, so we weaved in some concepts that we thought would work. I started thinking, ‘This really could be a sport.’

“I mean, we’re intense as mixed martial artist, and people think skydivers are a little crazy, so blending the two together would take a real special person. Bringing out the referees and stuff, you could kind of see with trained eyes how the referee could step in and make sure things don’t get too crazy. But 12,000 feet in the air, if you’re really in to finding out who’s the man, that’s the spot to do it.”

Of course, UFC contracts (and sanity, honestly) would prevent Faber from ever taking part in such an extreme activity. Fortunately for company brass, they don’t have to worry about “The California Kid” getting too involved in such an undertaking – at least for now.

“These guys at AMP Energy have been kind of an extension of family, and the product is awesome,” Faber said. “I’m not a big caffeine drinker and a person that goes over the top with things, but I have a few favorite flavors. You use them at the right times and be smart about how you’re using this stuff, and it works.

“I’m a high-energy person. It’s what I do. The whole thing is stepping it up a notch and working hard. This, creatively, had a lot of people involved, but what an awesome concept. I could actually see this thing taking off. I might actually have to start a full-contact league. We’d have to really think about some of the rules a little bit more, but I would do it. I’m actually going to try and find a simulator near Sacramento and get in there on the regular.”

Faber (30-7 MMA, 6-3 UFC) returns to action at next week’s UFC 175 event, where he takes on Alex Caceres (10-5 MMA, 5-3 UFC) in the night’s final FOX Sports 1-televised preliminary-card bout.

For more on UFC 175, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.