Are we in 2010?
Longtime featherweight contender Cub Swanson recently stated that he’d like to test the waters in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bantamweight division. Swanson started his career at 135 pounds before making the move up in 2006.
Should he start the weight-cutting process, the scrappy striker knows exactly who he wants to face, recently telling MMA Junkie Radio that a showdown against Urijah Faber would be his ideal matchup.
“After fighting a stretch of up-and-comers, I was excited to fight Elkins because it was somebody that’s been around for a while, someone there’s tons of tape on, somebody close to my age,” Swanson said before adding that it should be for the honorary WEC bantamweight title.
“There were a lot of things where I was like, ‘Ah, we’re two veterans, we’re going to go and throw down.’ I think fighting Urijah is the same thing on another level. People love him and people have loved me for years, so I think it always makes for a great fight. We should have fought many, many times and just never did, so why not now? “We should do it for an honorary WEC belt,” he added. They did the ‘BMF’ belt, so why not? Throwback.”
It didn’t take long for “The California Kid” to respond to the challenge, saying that he would be more than happy to face off against his old WEB stablemate in a fight he says should have happened long ago.
Uriah Faber responds to Cub Swanson’s call out pic.twitter.com/wYqdgXXA61
— Alex Behunin (@AlexBehunin) January 6, 2022
Of course, Faber was at one time the poster boy for the now-defunct WEC promotion as its 145-pound champion. When he made his UFC debut at UFC 128 in 2011, he did so as a bantamweight. He had four opportunities to capture UFC gold but unfortunately came up short on each occasion. He last competed at UFC 245, losing to current interim bantamweight champion, Peter Yan, via knockout (see it here).
Swanson, meanwhile, had a three-year run as a 145 pounder with WEC before he made the jump into the Octagon in 2011. He has competed 21 times in the division since, including winning three of his last four fights.
Does this fight garner your interest?