Seven years ago when Urijah Faber was just beginning his professional MMA career, he wrote out a set of goals. One of his chief objectives was to become a champion in the UFC or PRIDE. The latter organization never had a championship in his favored division when he fought as a featherweight, and he ran into the same problem when it came to the UFC.
Faber, it seemed, was too small to be a major champion. Only he found a way to buck the system, helping to build the WEC’s featherweight belt into a prestigious piece of hardware and the promotion into a player. So while Faber was never quite able to cross off that line on his to-do list, he was going to have to live with “close enough.”
Now though, his dream might become a reality. With the UFC-WEC merger, the “California Kid” is free to chase a a goal he had nearly resigned himself from ever getting: the UFC championship.