The rubber match between Dominic Cruz and Urijah Faber will resolve things, but that rivalry will live on

If you haven’t considered the dangers of doodling by now, look no further than the simmering rivalry between Urijah Faber and Dominick Cruz, who will meet for the third time on Saturday night. A long time ago, before their first fight at WEC 26 in 2007, Cruz had the audacity to sign his name colorfully over Faber’s likeness on the promotional posters. Though he’s proven incapable of rising to the octave of “pissed off,” Faber packed a pretty tight grudge against the current bantamweight champion that remains intact some nine years later.And that’s where we stand heading into UFC 199’s co-main event. Faber won that first fight, giving Cruz his first (and only) loss. Cruz won the second in 2011. Eons have passed in between trying to trilogize the series. Through all that life that’s been lived since they last met at UFC 132 — Cruz undergoing three ACL procedures and becoming the game’s best analyst; Faber fighting twice more for titles and coming up short; Cathal Pendred fighting out pretty much the entire length of his career, etc, etc. — they’ve gone right on ahead sneering at each other. It’s actually kind of touching that they can stretch such bitterness across the years like that.Still, the thing will end Saturday night at the Forum in Inglewood, which can’t help but produce a kind of pre-nostalgic pang for the era closing out. The odds-makers love Cruz — who came back from essentially four years of anguish and recovery to take the belt from Faber’s one-time homie T.J. Dillashaw in January — to continue on his winning ways. Faber, in the minds of many, is a …

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