Urijah Faber Set To Face Alex Caceres At UFC 175
Team Alpha Male leader Urijah Faber has been out of action since his failed UFC 169 title bid against Renan Barao, his second loss to “The Baron.”
The defeat snapped “The California Kid’s” impressive four-fight surge, but that’s not going to keep the former World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) champion down. News broke today that Faber will be getting back into the cage quite soon, facing Alex Caceres at UFC 175.
The UFC confirmed the bout this afternoon, and Ariel Helwani described the scenario to Chael Sonnen on this evening’s UFC Tonight:
“Guys, how about this one? Alex Caceres, A.K.A. “Bruce Leeroy,” he’s going to be fighting Urijah Faber at UFC 175 on July 5. Now, here’s the backstory on this one: remember, a few weeks ago I told you that Urijah Faber really wanted to fight on that July 5 card, UFC 175, the card that you are supposedly going to be fighting against Wanderlei Silva. Well, his manager Malki Kawa then called up the UFC and said, ‘we want to take this fight.”
Now, Caceres last fought in January. He had surgery to correct a deviated septum. He’s ready to go and they really think that, “Look, we could fight any of the top guys at 135, but they don’t have big names. Let’s fight the top guy of them all, one of the biggest names in the history of the sport, and see where we stack up. We love this fight.”
And Urijah Faber then told me that he liked the fight, and here we go; the UFC made it. So that’s a huge opportunity for Alex Caceres, and it’s going down July 5.”
The No. 13-ranked Caceres, who first made a name for himself on the twelfth season of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), is unbeaten over his last five UFC bouts and has won five out of seven. However, it’s obvious that he’ll receive his toughest-ever test in Faber.
This fight is a bit of a strange booking, but it’s never a bad idea to put Faber on a blockbuster card. UFC 175 already features two title fights as Chris Weidman will put the middleweight belt on the line against Lyoto Machida and Ronda Rousey looks to extend her dominant run against Alexis Davis.
Faber vs. Caceres should be a nice lead-in to the pivotal fights. What are your thoughts about the unexpected bout?
