WEC 50: Urijah Faber's Knee Injury Maybe a Deeper Issue

Urijah Faber announced on his Twitter account on Friday that he is off the WEC 50 card this August 18th in Las Vegas, Nevada with an injured knee. Consequently, Faber’s opponent Takeya Mizugaki, has been removed from the card as well. The knee injury isn’t the only thing Faber has to be worrying about. This injury marks another rough patch in what has been a rocky ride over the last year and a half for the “California Kid.”

Urijah Faber has been the face of the WEC over the last five years, and despite his recent shortcomings, he is still arguably the face of the organization. Faber won the WEC featherweight title at WEC 19 in March of 2006. He then went on to defending that title on five occasions before losing it to Mike Brown on November of 2008 at WEC 36. With five title defenses over a span of nearly three years, Faber is the most successful fighter to be fighting under the WEC banner to this day.

Ever since losing his title in November of 2008 by way of a devastating knock out at the hands of Mike Brown, Faber has been struggling to string wins together. Faber is 2-3 in his last five fights. Those  wins came against a washed up Jens Pulver and undefeated, yet untested, Raphael Assuncao.

Faber lost his last fight to the current featherweight champion Jose Aldo, and although a loss to Aldo isn’t anything to get down about, the fashion in which Faber lost the unanimous decision began to have fans and media wondering whether Faber would be able to stay relevant in the featherweight division. Faber and the WEC obviously wondered about his reign in the featherweight division as well because Faber’s first fight back since losing to Aldo was going to involve a drop down to bantamweight.

Faber is an explosive fighter with a strong wrestling base and good all around game—a drop to 135 pounds would most likely allow Faber to utilize a strength advantage and strong wrestling to help him control the smaller fighters of the bantam weight division. Unfortunately fans will have to wait until at least WEC 51 to see how Faber will look in a new weight class.

Faber wouldn’t be the first fighter to drop down in weight after mediocre outings. Wanderlei Silva made the drop from 205 pounds to 185 pounds, as did and Michael Bisping.

Faber will probably find some success at the new weight class, after all he is only 31 years old and his lifestyle appears to be that of a dedicated athlete—he eats well and is always in the gym trying to get better.

Faber has also shown fans that he has the heart of a lion. In all his losses he has put forth a valiant effort and hasn’t shown any quit. In his rematch with Mike Brown, Faber broke both hands early on and still fought the full five rounds throwing standing elbows to stay in the fight, he lost via unanimous decision.

The only problem for Faber is that when you start to see a former champion have difficulty stringing wins together against top competition doubt starts to creep into the mind of the fans, media and possibly the fighter himself.

Reading some of Faber's recent posts on Twitter reflects the attitude of a person who has seen better days. Faber has posted a few pictures of trophies he obtained in high school, and successes he had in college, adding comments like “Relivin the glory days” to the caption.

It is not uncommon that when we as people are in hard times we will often reflect on the good times to keep ourselves in good spirits and one has to wonder if Faber is in that place we have all been at one point in life.

Faber is a resilient guy, and one has to be certain that he is doing everything he possibly can to get back to winning ways and fighting at bantamweight is part of the game plan. It is a pity a knee injury had to derail his comeback for now. “The California Kid” will be back, and win or lose, he will always hold a place in the heart of every fan and he will always give 110 percent every time he steps into the cage.