Dominick Cruz defeated Urijah Faber tonight in the first bantamweight championship fight in the
UFC’s history, winning a tightly contested judges’ decision and evening the score between the two men at 1-1.
The former WEC featherweight champion, Faber, fought hard but was unable to score enough points on the judges’ scorecards to be crowned the new champion. Still, he believed going into the decision that he had the fight won, he told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani.
“I’m an optimist, I felt like, yeah, I did enough,” he explained. “Three times, I feel like, I put him down and that scores usually pretty big on the cards. I took some of his best punches and kind of walked through.”
“I felt like I definitely had a chance to get the victory,” he added.
Faber was outnumbered in total strikes throughout the fight, but did land more power punches, according to CompuStrike.
“I did a lot of standing right in front of him and just kind of taking what he had, which was kind of my gameplan,” Faber admitted. “I wanted to not react to his movement and get distracted, stay calm and block his kicks and his punches, then fire back with some heavier punches.
“But I guess when it goes to a decision, you need to rack up those points also, and I must not have done that.”
When asked about an immediate rematch, Faber stopped short at saying that he believed he deserved an immediate fight with Cruz, but did agree that the division seems to be somewhat in limbo after he lost to the champion.
“That’s not up to me. I’ll fight anybody. I’ve never turned a fight down. Any time they’ve wanted me to fight somebody, I’m game. I’m always game to take an opportunity to fight for the title.
“I really feel, in my heart, that there’s not a lot of people out there that can hold a match to me, let alone beat me. Dominick beat me tonight on the judges’ cards, but I feel like we were neck and neck in that fight.”
The former 145-pound kingpin is now 0-4 in his last four title fights with two losses to Mike Brown, one to Jose Aldo and his loss tonight to Dominick Cruz.
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