Duane ‘Bang’ Ludwig Thinks Urijah Faber Could Fight Renan Barao Again This Summer

Urijah Faber has been at the top of a very talented pool of fighters for quite a while now, and I don’t that his loss to Renan Barao changes that. Although the bout at UFC 169 had it’s semi-controversial ending, the lead up to the finish was decisive enough. Barao is a top-level fighter, as is ‘The California Kid’, but ‘Baron’ was simply better on the night.

There has already been talk of a trilogy-making match between the two Bantamweight superstars, and for good reason; the chances are that Faber will come back even stronger and may even have a shot at the title by the end of the year. That is speculation, but Faber’s coach over at Team Alpha Male would agree with those sentiments. Duane ‘Bang’ Ludwig spoke with Sherdog recently, check it out:

“I don’t think Urijah even needs to have another fight to go back to Barao. I think they should redo it, but of course I’m not the promoter. I’m not the one dealing with the P.R. relations and such, so I think what they would like to do is have Urijah do one more fight, maybe do one more fight, maybe in the summer or so, or maybe in the spring or something, do another fight, get a win and then fight Barao again in the summer.”

Faber destroyed former number one contender Michael McDonald in December 2013 scrap, and dominated the very dangerous Iuri Alcantara. There is no question about Faber’s abilities, so is he a victim of circumstance? Ludwig continued:

“He didn’t really lose this time, though, it was a bad stoppage. If he went out there and got dominated and got his ass beat or got submitted or got stopped, like knocked out cold or the referee didn’t pull him away when he should have stopped the fight, then you’d have a valid point, but right now you don’t have a valid point because he lost to him the first [time] in a very close fight, a decision. This time it was a premature stoppage — everybody agrees. Because of this point in particular, the way it was stopped, there should be a third fight.”

Although I do agree that it was a premature stoppage, he wasn’t really having too much luck before the fact. That being said, Faber is one of the toughest dudes around, but I can’t imagine seeing him knocked clean out. If Dean’s early stoppage prevented that, which it may well have, then I respect that decision.

I expect we will see Faber back in action very soon, and he is more than aware of what it takes to get a rematch with Barao; a seamless performance against a top level fighter, something that he had displayed in the four fights prior to his 169 title match with Barao.