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Urijah Faber is officially back in the mix following a return from retirement and his next challenge is his biggest one in years as he takes on rising Bantamweight contender Petr Yan at UFC 245.
The Russian has yet to lose a bout in the UFC and currently sits at #4 in the UFC Bantamweight rankings. This makes it a favorable match-up for Faber as a win over Yan would make him jump the rankings, similar to Frankie Edgar who is set to make his Bantamweight debut against Cory Sandhagen on 25th January 2020, at UFC Fight Night 167.
On an appearance in UFC Unfiltered, Faber spoke about how the fight with Yan came to be (H/T Credits MMA Junkie).
“I want the top dogs. Who do you guys think are the top dogs? Who’s going to get me closest to fighting Cejudo for a belt, and Dana gave me a bunch of different options, guys that are ranked much lower, and he said you want to be in title contention then this is the guy. And I’m like, ‘All right, let’s do it.’ And he’s an exciting guy.”
He said that the current UFC Bantamweight division is as exciting as it's ever been, stating:
It’s exciting. I mean, this is the most interesting this weight division has ever been,” Faber said. “You’ve got the up-and-coming guys like Aljamain (Sterling) and Petr Yan and Song Yadong and (Cory) Sandhagen and the list goes on of guys who we probably haven’t even heard of yet.
He also spoke about Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar making a jump into the division and called it a "rich weight class", excited about the fact that he's still in the mix with all of this.
We couldn't agree with Faber more. Even in the days where Dominick Cruz, T.J Dillashaw and himself were the three top Bantamweights, the division wasn't as stacked as it is now. There has been an exodus from Featherweight to Bantamweight, similar to the recent exodus of many top-ranked Middleweights to Light Heavyweight.
The division has gotten so much more stacked and it's going to be exciting to see how it plays out. Henry Cejudo is expected to return in a few months and it'll be interesting to see if there's a clear contender by then. Either way, the Olympic Gold Medalist and 2-division champion is going to have a tough time in his next fight.
