The co-main event of UFC 199 features a bantamweight championship fight between champ Dominick Cruz (21-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) and No. 2-ranked challenger Urijah Faber (33-8 MMA, 9-4 UFC), the rubber match of one of the sport’s best rivalries.
The Cruz-Faber saga dates all the way back to March, 2007, the pair’s World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) days. Cruz was a 9-0 up-and-comer who was challenging for the WEC featherweight crown, then held by none other than Faber. Faber was able to tapout Cruz, who was just 21 at the time, with a guillotine choke 1:38 into the fight. Since then, Cruz has never lost another fight.
The two met again in the UFC in July of 2011. In the organization’s new bantamweight division, Cruz carried over his champion belt from the WEC. In his second UFC fight after a unanimous decision victory over Eddie Wineland, Faber was granted a shot at Cruz’s title. Cruz avenged his lone loss with a unanimous decision victory over Faber. The two were supposed to meet for the third time a year later, but Cruz had to pull out of the fight with a torn ACL.
One torn groin later, Cruz was stripped of his title. He finally came back and beat Takeya Mizugaki in September of 2014 via first round TKO. After the fight, Cruz suffered another ACL injury; this time in his right knee. Upon his return in January of 2016, Cruz was granted a title shot against T.J. Dillashaw, and he made the most of it and earned a split decision to re-capture the title he never lost inside the cage. Now, almost four years after the original rubber match was supposed to take place, Cruz will attempt to defend his title against Faber.
Forget Conor McGregor and his coach, Ido Portal. Cruz has the best movement in the UFC, and when you combine that with his boxing skills, he’s a nightmare for anyone because they can’t hit him. Faber’s best chance of winning is utilizing his trademark tools: the big right hand and searching for the guillotine choke if the fight hits the ground.
Faber has clearly lost a step (he had trouble decisively beating Frankie Saenz) but the guillotine he used to defeat Cruz in their first fight as well as his right hand that put him in danger in the second one are nothing to scoff at. Still, Cruz looked solid against a very good fighter in Dillashaw in his return fight, and should look even stronger here. The smart pick here is Cruz by unanimous decision, but it’s also realistic that he TKOs Faber in the middle/end of the fight.
Featured Image via Esther Lin/MMAFighting.com
