TONIGHT: Faber vs Pulver
Posted by Dave Walsh on June 1st, 2008
By Dave Walsh
In just a few hours Jens Pulver takes on Urijah Faber in a fight that honestly, I’ve been looking forward to for over a year now. While last night was a night of sloppy fighting with poor stoppages and very little displayed in the way of skill, tonight fight fans will be treated to a great looking card. Topping off the card are two title fights; as the 135lbs and 145lbs titles will be defended respectively. While there is excitement over Miguel Torres making his defense of the Bandtamweight (135lbs) title, the big one is Featherweight (145lbs).
Jens Pulver, after being handed a defeat at 155lbs by one of the very best fighters alive today, BJ Penn, decided that 145lbs was his natural weight (finally) and to move back down. This meant that Jens was moving to WEC, as UFC has yet to cash in on the lighter fighters and still believes in pushing the Heavyweight and Lightheavyweight divisions as hard as they can. This is fine, and actually, it just gives WEC more points of differentiation from UFC. While both are owned by Zuffa, you know what to expect from your average WEC card and you know what to expect from your average UFC card. With UFC, you expect big names, up and coming stars and stars in the crowd. In WEC you expect every fighter to give it his all, no matter if he is an established veteran or a relative newcomer.
Pulver is being pushed by WEC as undefeated at 145lbs, with his last win a rare, but easy submission victory over Cub Swanson. While it may be true that Pulver did exceptionally well at 145lbs in the past, his record is still all over the place. At 155 he has beaten some names (notably BJ Penn) and has also been slaughtered by big names, as well as some not-so-big names. So, it is fair to say that Pulver is not the most consistent fighter in the world. Regardless, Pulver is an extremely exciting fighter and there is always the chance that he’ll pull off a big upset win in this fight (or any of his fights for that matter).
Then there is Urijah Faber. Faber is a hard guy to explain, as you look at him and he looks like he is in the wrong profession. Faber looks like he belongs on the Warped tour with a skateboard in hand, or competing at Hawaii surf competitions, not punching people in the face for a living, but he does it so well that as soon as he steps into the ring you can tell that he is a natural. Faber has mowed through the competition, with his only loss being to Tyson Griffin, whom it should be noted is one of UFC’s 155lbs prospects at the moment. The loss to Griffin was earlier on in his career, and since then any weakness that he has shown he has turned it right back around into a strength. His last test was against the very tough Jeff Curran, and what a test it was, as Curran had Urijah’s back for a full few minutes, and somehow Faber was able to seamlessly turn it around into an advantage and choke out Curran. Many had doubted if Faber was really a top level fighter before that fight, but afterwards it is simply hard to discount the California Kid.
What this comes down to is youth vs. experience, really. There is a very possible chance that Jens Pulver can catch Faber, as well as Pulver has been steadily working on his ground game to compliment his heavy hands, but on the other hand, Faber can handle everything that has been tossed at him at this point. Is there even a chance that Urijah will allow himself to get caught? Will his golden locks flow into his face and blind him from a big overhand right that’ll floor him? We’ll just have to see, and regardless of the outcome it should be a great fight heaped on top of a great card.
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
It was an excellent fight with both fighters putting in a good showing, faber is just plain dangerous