There’s always a chance that UFC Hall of Famer Urijah Faber comes out of retirement as an active MMA fighter.
If you recall, Faber decided to hang up his gloves in December of 2016 in his hometown of Sacramento.
As for the reasons for his retirement, it was due to a waning passion for the actual fights as well as still having his health.
Since then, he has stayed busy by doing commentary work on the Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series Snoopcast and remaining an integral part of Team Alpha Male as both coach and training partner.
It’s rare in MMA that legendary fighters stick to their first retirements. There are several examples of that.
Faber is keeping his options open and revealed during an interview with Submission Radio over the weekend that despite his retirement, he never left the USADA drug testing pool. Thus, he could fight again as soon as he wanted.
“Look, I spent a lot of time getting really great at fighting and i’m able-bodied and healthy,” said Faber (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “I train just as much or more than some of the guys that are active but it’s not my goal [to come back], necessarily. It’s just the habits that I’ve created in my life. I would say I’m always open to entertain any business opportunity or offer, and I love to do things that I love to do, so I’m not gonna cut anything out. I still get tested from USADA just because I’ve never taken drugs in my life so I don’t really care about that.
“It’s well worth it. The difference is, if there was a big opportunity and someone wanted you to fight and it sounded like a good idea, I wouldn’t want to wait four months to get cleared when I’m not doing drugs anyway. So I’ll take one for the team on a 6 a.m. wake-up call. I’ve got it down pat anyways. I pretty much sleep through the whole thing aside from when I’m giving the urine sample.”
“Not necessarily,” said Faber. “I don’t see any big opportunities but you never know with these guys. Like I said, I’ve gotten some crazy calls throughout the years. . . You never know when that kind of stuff happens.”
“People can say no to whatever they want,” said Faber. “Absolutely, he’s entitled to say no. You’re not required to fight and I’m sure it’s a very exciting time, having a baby. Congratulations to you guys. It’s different strokes for different folks.”
As seen at the UFC 217 PPV (pay-per-view) event in New York at Madison Square Garden, T.J. Dillashaw knocked out his former training partner Cody Garbrandt to win the UFC bantamweight title for a second time during his pro-MMA career.
The reason that Dillashaw doesn’t want to do a rematch right away with Garbrandt at UFC 222 was due to the fact that he’s trying to get a super fight with flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson.
“T.J., for the longest time, he was having trouble putting weight on,” said Faber. “He was 143 when he first in the gym and it was a struggle to get bigger and we talked about going down to 125 for a long time. I’m interested to see it I guess but I’m more interested in the 135-pound division as a whole. I’d like to see him defending and of course I’d like to see Cody get that rematch or some of the other guys that are up-and-coming in the division.”
And if Dillashaw does drop down? How does Faber think his former pupil would fair against the greatest fighter of all time?
“I would probably lean towards T.J., just because I remember what happened with Dominick Cruz when he fought T.J. and there was a little bit of wrestling involved. T.J.’s actually a Division I wrestler, a very good wrestler. It would be a close fight, absolutely. It could go either way, but my insight tells me he would get the win.”
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