Urijah Faber's long, storied career is coming to an end.
The former WEC featherweight champion and longtime staple of the bantamweight Top 10 is ready to hang up his gloves for good, and he's got just one last challenge ahead of him: a fight against fellow veteran Brad Pickett in his hometown of Sacramento, California.
Speaking with MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour (warning, NSFW language), Faber said the following (h/t MMA Fighting's Shaun Al-Shatti for the transcription): "I've been kind of waiting for this, and this is actually going to be my last fight," he said. "And it just feels right to do it in [Sacramento] in this new arena. It just feels like the right time and the right place."
Faber will leave behind a mixed, but largely positive, legacy. After making his professional debut in 2003, The California Kid quickly established himself as one of the best lighter-weight fighters in the world with a 21-1 run that included wins over a number of veteran featherweights and bantamweights including Dominick Cruz, Bibiano Fernandes and Jens Pulver.
He became the poster boy for both King of the Cage and World Extreme Cagefighting at a time when the UFC was in the process of dissolving its lightweight division and was among the first to show that fighters under 170 pounds were capable of being box-office draws.
Unfortunately, he wasn't able to maintain that success for long. After dropping the WEC featherweight title to Mike Brown at WEC 36, Faber began his unfortunate journey to becoming MMA's foremost bridesmaid. While he defeated fellow contenders with a surprising efficiency and remained one of the division's more popular fighters, he consistently fell short in his many title opportunities, coming up short against Jose Aldo, Dominick Cruz and Renan Barao in five championship fights.
Despite fighting for gold as recently as June, he has been struggling to recapture the hunger and motivation he had back in his youth. "I've been teetering with it for a long time," Faber said. "The thing is that I'm lucky. Like I said, I have my health and I really love what I'm doing. But just as far as the passion goes, I have a passion for what I'm doing still, but it doesn't get the same emotion (out of me) that it has in the past."
Of course, this plan is subject to change. Fighters are notoriously quick to stick a fork into their careers and pull it out shortly thereafter. Either way, Faber's fight with Pickett will go down on December 17.
Hopefully he can go out on a good note, one way or another.
