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I’ve been watching this fighter on a couple of TV channels but mainly on VS I think. He is the WEC (World Extreme Cage fighting) Feather Weight Champion. This kid is exciting to watch because he is a well rounded fighter. He can punch, kick, choke and I love his elbows and knees. I just watched his December 12 2007 fight replay on VS and saw a move I had never seen before. Urijah was fighting this jui jitsu guy Jeff Curran. In the second round, Jeff had grabbed Urijah’s right leg while standing and Urijah brought his left knee up for a face strike! Urijah is a man after my own heart with his extensive use of elbows!
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The Faber vs Curran fight ended with a choke in the second round. The amazing thing about this fight (other than that knee) was Faber gave up his back early in the first round and was fighting defensively. I've seen him for his last few fights and knew he could hang until he found an opening. I watched has he probed this way and that until he was back in control by the end of the first round.
Urijah has some of the fastest elbows I've seen in MMA. He can be in a clinch and rapidly disengage, elbow and re-engage in the blink of an eye. It did not seem to matter if he was standing or on the ground (in any position) - he found a way to keep the pace of the fight going and always get the advantage. I could not find stable video of the Jeff Curran fight but here is some (bloody) video of his Bibiano Ferandes fight from October 28 2006. There are some of those elbows in this video but if you are faint of heart - skip this video.
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It is refreshing to see a champion that is not only a great athlete but also level headed. He seems polite but is aggressive in the cage. I reviewed some of his training method videos and was impressed. No wonder he is a champion... he trains five hours a day with working on his weaknesses so he will continually grow his bag of ticks. Well I guess you all know how I feel about this guy... I'm hoping he will have a long and prosperous career.
Now for some take-away... fighters like this do not accept that an opponent has any advantage over them. They are willing to do whatever it takes to win a fight. The parallel here is self-defense is the same thing. First you have to believe you can win even though you might not have an idea of what it will take.
When I was fighting point karate - I use to watch the matches prior to mine and find out what everyone was doing wrong... meaning what I could do if I ran up against a fighter like that. My brain was not fearful but calculating. It did not matter what someone said or what they looked like - but what they could do on the mat. I hope this pep talk helps - it is what I think like when I have to fight. Champions and regular folk have that in common... to win you have to believe you can and be willing to do whatever it takes - Like Urijah Faber does in his fights!