UFC 199: Rockhold vs. Bisping 2 – Dominick Cruz vs Urijah Faber Toe to Toe Preview

Cruz and Faber finish the trilogy we didn’t ask for but are cool with accepting this June 4, 2016 at the The Forum in Inglewood, California.

Single sentence summary:

Phil: A fun demonstration of Dominick Cruz’ talents against an opponent that he doesn’t like very much.

David: All the animals except Cruz fear the T-Rex.

Stats

Record: Dominick Cruz  21-1 Urijah Faber 33-8

Odds: Dominick Cruz -430 Urijah Faber +380

History lesson / introduction to the fighters

Phil: Dominic Cruz is back, and it feels like he never left. Partially that’s because he’s fighting the same guy he did back in the WEC days, but also because he’s miraculously come out from multi-year(!) lay-offs looking as good or better than he did in the past. The biggest change is that modern Cruz operates in an era of far higher hipster technical awareness, where there’s more appreciation for things like effective defense. He also has some fan affection for the comeback story, which doesn’t seem to be tempered by his characteristic prickly arrogance. Cruz is fun to have around.

David: The great thing about having Cruz back is watching him pick wings off the collective Alpha Male word fly. I still watch that Cruz vs. Dillashaw HBO rip off show as my own personal meditation.  I haven’t been paying attention to Cruz’ Wittgensteinian approach to Faber because I haven’t had much time lately, but the T-Rex arms bit looks promising.

“You’re gonna be reaching for it with your T-rex arms.” pic.twitter.com/RLijO4YsOR

— caposa (@GrabakaHitman) June 2, 2016

Phil: Urijah Faber is one of the best fighters to never win a belt in the UFC. Of course, he held the WEC featherweight strap, which can be considered a de facto UFC belt (I certainly value it more than, say, Dave Menne’s UFC Middleweight Championship). The UFC belt proper never materialized, and short of a borderline miracle on Saturday, never will. The most impressive thing about Faber is how amazingly consistent he’s been: at 37, I don’t think he’s particularly slower, weaker or less durable than he was in his 20s. Of course, he’s not much technically better either, so he just functions as a consistent marker jammed in the ground for the rest of the division to measure themselves against.

David: Faber is MMA’s Dan Marino. I used to think it was Kenny Florian. But he turned out to be Jonah Lehrer instead. To be fair, if there’s any challenger as such a heavy underdog with the chance to make this fight interesting, Faber is a solid candidate. While Cruz has steadily improved his defense and footwork, this matchup is at least different enough from the Dillashaw fight to pose its own challenges, …

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