Urijah Faber On Frankie Edgar Fight: I Feel Like I Won A Few Of Those Rounds

After years of speculation, former champions Frankie “The Answer” Edgar and “The California Kid” Urijah Faber finally met in the main event of UFC Fight Night 66 on May 16, 2015 from the Philippines in what was being considered a super fight. And the result? A rather dominant decision win for Edgar, in which “The Answer” was awarded all five rounds on the judges’ score cards.

After all the build-up and excitement, some fans were let down with the so called lack of action that the fight produced, and Faber even said that he believes Edgar won due to “dead time”, where the former lightweight champion was attempting to grapple with “The California Kid”, but not doing much which resulted in some uneventful action:

“For me, that was dead time in there,” Faber said on yesterday’s (June 1, 2015) edition of the MMA Hour. “And that’s kind of the difference. Could I have done some takedown attempts and try to wrestle a little bit? Yeah. But I don’t feel like it was the best move to finish the fight. So that’s why I wasn’t going for as much wrestling.”

Despite there being some “dead time”, and Edgar getting all the rounds on the scorecards, “The California Kid” doesn’t actually believe that he lost every round:

“Every round, they gotta give it to someone,” Faber said. “It depends what they’re looking at. I felt like I could have gotten a couple of those rounds, for sure.”

Faber also credited the lack of action of sorts to the even skills of both competitors, noting that there were some exchanges, but it’s much more difficult when you have two evenly matched, world-class competitors going at it. “The California Kid” even compared it to a chess match, and said that the fight should have been 10 rounds and someone would’ve had to break:

“We had a lot of exchanges, kind of like a high-speed chess match they call it. I would have liked to do a little more damage,” said Faber, who can understand that many fans went home unsatisfied that night. “You’ve seen Frankie get rocked before in fights and have to come back, you’re seeing me rock guys and get submissions. It’s harder when you have an even fight. Sometimes, the mismatches are the best fights, because you see one guy just getting his butt whipped real bad. And I don’t think neither of us guys is the one who gets his butt whipped.”

“They should make some special rules where they can make a fight go, like, maybe ten rounds,” Faber said. “Because somebody’s gonna have to break at some point, and I don’t think Frankie and I… we could’ve fought another five rounds easily, you know.”

As far as what’s next for the experienced veteran, Faber claimed that he has options due to his ability to hang with the best in the world at multiple weight classes:

“I know I’m right there with the top level at both weight classes, so it just gives me options,” Faber said. “There are a few guys in the world who are able to compete in multiple weight classes at the highest level. Some guys will never be able to hold a match to the top three their entire career.”

Should “The California Kid” remain at featherweight or drop back down to his more recent home at bantamweight?