The World Extreme Cagefighting’s most popular fighter, “The California Kid” Urijah Faber (23-4) was hoping to make his return to the cage in September but is now looking at the month of November instead.
Faber had been scheduled to face Takeya Mizugaki at WEC 50 on Aug. 18, it would have marked a return for the fighter at 135 pounds, but an injury forced him to pull out.
“The California Kid” was a guest on Sherdog.com’s radio show recently speaking about the injury, his recovery, and more.
“I’m back to full-on training now. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to fight in November. I told (WEC officials) I could go in September when I found out I’d be out four to six weeks. I wanted to be on the Sept. 30 card, but I got pushed back to November.”
“I was doing some kickboxing and takedowns and my leg got yanked from the outside in,” said Faber. “They said it was an atypical injury to my MCL. My MCL kind of peeled away from the bone. They told me I wouldn’t need surgery, but I’d be out four to six weeks. I was able to do some stuff without twisting it, so I was able to work out, do physical therapy and stay in shape. It’s been six weeks since I hurt my leg, this was supposed to be a six-week injury and I had my first full week of practice last week.”
“Where I’m at right now, I’m just having a great time and fighting my heart out. I just want fights that make sense. (A fight with Miguel) Torres would be bigger for me right now than (fighting WEC bantamweight champion Dominick) Cruz. There are all kinds of fights I can do right now and can go back up to 145. I feel like I can do well against most anybody at 145 and I’d be willing to go to 155 at some point.”
Faber is just 2-3 in his past three fights, three of which were WEC featherweight title fights, having lost his last bout to current featherweight champ José Aldo in the main event of WEC’s first ever pay-per-view show in April of this year.