Urijah Faber set to face Vaughn Lee at UFC 156

Urijah Faber looks to bounce back from his loss to Renan Barao when he faces Vaughn Lee at the UFC’s Super Bowl weekend card on February 2nd. The news about the bout was first reported by Tatame.

The former WEC featherweight champion is 2-2 since coming to the UFC, with wins over Brian Bowles and Eddie Wineland while being on the wrong end of decisions against bantamweight champ Dominic Cruz and current interim champ Barao. On paper, this looks like a bit of a mismatch in favor of “The California Kid” as Lee is 12-8-1 in his MMA career and 1-2 in the UFC. The English grappler scored an impressive submission victory over Kid Yamamoto but was dominated and subsequently submitted by Faber’s Team Alpha Male teammate T.J. Dillashaw at UFC on FUEL TV 4 back in July.

Why would the UFC pair these two? Obviously not to be competitive as Faber is expected to make short work of Lee. Perhaps it is to simply put the highly marketable Faber back on the winning track on a card that is already loaded with talent. It’s not yet know if Faber will be on the main card but due to his popularity it would be surprising if he ended up on the prelims.