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What would happen if Urijah Faber had to fight his protégé Joseph Benavidez?
By Zach Arnold | June 13, 2010
This question arises from a recent interview that Dave Farra did with Reed Harris last Friday to promote the upcoming WEC event on August 18th at The Palms in Las Vegas.
With Urijah Faber dropping down to Bantamweight (135 pounds), it opens the door for sure to either a re-match against Dominick Cruz or a fresh match-up against Joseph Benavidez. There are several reasons that a Faber/Benavidez match-up would be intriguing to watch, but the biggest one obviously has to do with the fact that Joe is Faber’s top understudy and we know what Zuffa thinks about teammates fighting each other. Would Faber fight Benavidez (I say yes) or would he go back up to Featherweight in order to prevent the fight from happening?
I have a full transcript of the radio conversation here for your review.
As for Dave Farra, he does a really good job with his RawVegas.tv and radio show interviews. When you have so many egos at work in Mixed Martial Arts, the art form of being able to get good interviews and insightful answers out of guys who constantly want their asses kissed is not easy. Try it yourself and see how it goes. I did it for several years and it’s not as easy as it looks. Some people may say that Dave’s interviews are largely ‘non-offensive,’ but if you listen to how he interviews guests he does a good job of bobbing in and out as far as getting an in-depth answer and then pulling back to give his guest enough room to talk. He’s slick at what he does and it usually produces really good interview results.
The audio that you are hearing for this interview comes from The Dave and Mahoney show on X107.5 in Vegas.
DAVE FARRA: “Reed Harris from the WEC is in studio today and we got a lot of big things to talk about on the WEC front as well. Of course, next weekend on Sunday the 20th, you’ve got a big show coming up that’s going to be up in Canada as well. Why don’t you talk about that.”
REED HARRIS: “Yeah, I’ve got a show up from Edmonton. I’ve got Jamie Varner fighting Kamal Shalorus, which is kind of a contender fight.”
DAVE FARRA: “Yeah.”
REED HARRIS: “Jamie, obviously, lost to Ben Henderson. Kamal has not lost in WEC and I think this is really going to be not only a fantastic fight because both of these guys have really good skill sets. You know Jamie Varner said he thinks Kamal is the best wrestler he’s ever faced.”
DAVE FARRA: “Kamal is vicious, man. Every time I see that guy fight he’s just dismantling opponents. He looks really strong. He’s huge for his weight class.”
REED HARRIS: “Huge hooks and stuff like that. He hits really hard. And Jamie knows that and I was with Jamie up in Edmonton and he said, look, I’ve been working on my boxing, man, I’ve been working on blocking stuff.”
DAVE FARRA: “Keep your hands up.”
REED HARRIS: “Yeah, keep your hands up, exactly. And then I’ve got a guy named Josh Grispi who we look at as maybe The Next Best Thing. I mean he may be a guy that can compete with (Jose Aldo). He’s 21, I think, years old and Josh has burned through three guys. I mean in the last fight, Jens Pulver. He’s been hurt, he’s coming back. He’s fighting LC Davis, who’s also undefeated in WEC and that fight can go either way. If LC’s able to you know LC kind of fights like Randy Couture in that he likes to push guys up against the cage and abuse them up there, you know, wear them down. Josh Grispi, on the other hand, if he sinks you know if he gets him in a guillotine or something like that, LC’s in trouble.”
DAVE FARRA: “We know that Manny Gamburyan has said that he wants the next crack at Jose Aldo for the Featherweight championship. Is that going to happen?”
REED HARRIS: “I don’t know yet. What we’re going to do is we like to wait, you know, we’re going to wait and see what happens next week and then we’ve got some other prospects we’re looking at so we’re not sure yet, it’s not a fight I’m ready to announce. I know Manny’s announced it, but I’m not ready to.”
DAVE FARRA: “Which is different.”
REED HARRIS: “And you know what’s great about it, I mean it truly, Manny Gamburyan does not have one ounce of fear about Jose Aldo.”
DAVE FARRA: “Right.”
REED HARRIS: “Which to me is just, that’s what make the sport so wonderful.”
DAVE FARRA: “Yeah.”
REED HARRIS: “He’s just telling me, I’m going to kick that guy’s ass and I’m like, good for you, man.”
DAVE FARRA: “Do you honesty think that anyone can kick Jose Aldo’s ass?”
REED HARRIS: “Well, you know what, I’ll just tell you. I used to not think anybody could do that to anybody and then I’ve seen all these guys at the top of the game get caught and whether someone could actually kick his ass, I don’t know, but anybody can be beat, man.”
DAVE FARRA: “Yeah, Urijah Faber seemed invincible there for a while.”
REED HARRIS: “Yeah, Chuck (Liddell) did, too. It’s just going to happen. I mean, Lyoto (Machida), after you know his performance.”
DAVE FARRA: “Oh my God, they were all calling it the Shogun era or the Machida era.”
REED HARRIS: “Right, and (Mauricio) Shogun just dismantled him, you know.”
MAHONEY: “Two times, I thought.”
REED HARRIS: “No, I thought Lyoto won that first round.”
DAVE FARRA: “See, that’s what I thought, too. Mahoney disagrees.”
MAHONEY: “You guys were there live.”
DAVE FARRA: “I was at the fight live and I wasn’t listening to the commentary and maybe that had something to do.”
MAHONEY: “I’m not influenced by Joe Rogan’s commentary.”
DAVE FARRA: “Apparently you are, Mahoney.”
MAHONEY: “He’s the best in the business.”
DAVE FARRA: “Apparently you are.”
MAHONEY: “I went back and watched that fight six times on mute, Dave.”
DAVE FARRA: “Actually, speaking of commentary, what’s the deal with the WEC’s color commentary position? Is Kenny Florian taking that over permanently?”
REED HARRIS: “No, I don’t think so. I know Kenny’s going to be filling in for us up in Canada, but I don’t think there’s been a decision as far as who’s going to be coming in permanently.”
DAVE FARRA: “It sounded like it was permanent. Dana, I think, at one point said Stephan Bonnar was coming in and was going to take it over after he did that show and then Jens Pulver was going to do it.”
REED HARRIS: “Yeah, it’s really been about schedules and conflicts and things like that and if there, you know, I’m happy with just having Kenny.”
DAVE FARRA: “Kenny’s great.”
REED HARRIS: “Or any of these guys, Jens or Stephan or any of these guys that want to come in, they all do a good job. I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve ever been disappointed in the commentating of my show no matter who’s been doing it, you know, so I’m open to any of them.”
DAVE FARRA: “OK. And what about Jens Pulver? He got cut from the organization and I know that must have been tough for you and I mean Jens basically said, look, you know, there’s no way they could have kept me around and kept me fighting, I’ve lost the last five in a row, but was that a tough moment for you?”
REED HARRIS: “Yeah, Jens is a great guy. I mean I’m a friend of Jens but you know we’ve got to also look at the business side of it and we’ve got to look at the fact that if someone you know is losing like that it also becomes you know maybe not so good for them as far as you know putting in them there with these young guys and getting beat up.”
DAVE FARRA: “Yeah, and you know, it kind of shows favoritism if you hang onto a guy who’s lost five in a row when other guys you know only have a shelf life of maybe two or three losses.”
SNIP
DAVE FARRA: “We’ve got a big announcement to make. WEC coming back to Las Vegas. The stage is yours.”
REED HARRIS: “Well, you know, what we wanted to do, this is going to be our 50th show and we wanted to do it in a place obviously that’s been good to us which is Las Vegas. We’re going to be at The Palms on August 18th which is a Wednesday. We’re doing a card that is going to be, you know, similar to the card we did in Sacramento. We’re going to have just a whole bunch of headliners on there. I can announce two fights today, which is my Bantamweight title which is Dominick Cruz vs. Joseph Benavidez. As you know, Dominick Cruz has not lost at 135 and Joseph Benavidez just had a huge win against Miguel Torres, you know.”
DAVE FARRA: “Oh yeah.”
MAHONEY: “He looks like a monster in that fight.”
FARRA: “And both fighters looked like monsters in their last fight.”
REED HARRIS: “And you know, Faber’s camp has told me Benavidez is one of those guys that’s like you know how you have the most improved guy of the year kind of award? You know he’s the one who gets that. He just improves every day.”
MAHONEY: “That guy fights like he has nothing to lose. A little bit crazy he seems but I love him.”
REED HARRIS: “He’s a guy that can stand over you and fly at you and drop a elbow and change direction in mid-flight.”
DAVE FARRA: “Yeah, just ask Miguel Torres.”
REED HARRIS: “Ask Miguel Torres and exactly and we all saw that picture and I won’t bring that up again. And then also we’re going to have Urijah Faber back and Urijah Faber’s going to come back at 135. He’s dropping to 35, he’s going to fight at a new weight. He’s fighting Takeya Mizugaki, who fought Torres in the fight of the year last year and Mizugaki’s a tough dude. He can take a lot of punishment and he’s you know he just beat Jeff Curran so… that’s the two headliners and then we’re going to have 8 or 9 other fights that are just stellar.”
MAHONEY: “I just have to ask. I know you can’t answer everything, but is The Korean Zombie going to be on it?”
REED HARRIS: “I’m working on that.” I’m going to tell you on that right now, I’m working on it.”
DAVE FARRA: “A rematch with Leonard Garcia?”
REED HARRIS: “Well, I don’t know about that, yet. I’d probably like to see him fight somebody else first. I really would.”
DAVE FARRA: “Hey, can you hook me up with one of those t-shirts?”
REED HARRIS: “I probably can, yes. Someone was wearing at my office yesterday. Someone came into the office with one on, one of the gals.”
MAHONEY: “That’s the coolest shirt I’ve seen in a while.”
FARRA: “Actually they have them for sale I think down at The Las Vegas Fight Shop there at Fashion Show Mall, I think they have them there.”
REED HARRIS: “Do they?”
DAVE FARRA: “So, WEC 50, this is the official announcement. Tickets go on sale next week, June 17th. There’s going to be some special pre-sale stuff going on if you’re a member of The Fight Club and you’re going to want to get tickets early for this because the Magic convention is in town and they’re very active in the MMA world as well, so this show is going to be sold out. It’s happening August 18th at The Palms, Mizugaki vs. Urijah Faber, Dominick Cruz/Joseph Benavidez, and one last point that I want to talk about. If Joseph Benavidez wins this title over Dominick Cruz, Urijah Faber drops down to 135, they’re best of friends and they’re training partners and the whole thing. Is Urijah Faber, he’s got to be thinking about the possibility of fighting his dear friend and somebody that considered him to be a mentor for the long time.”
REED HARRIS: “Sure, but it’s a business.”
DAVE FARRA: “Yeah.”
REED HARRIS: “And I’m sure he considered that before he agreed to drop down and we’ll just see what happens. Look, he may want to go back up to 45 after fighting at 35, you never know. A guy goes to a new weight class and sometimes they don’t feel comfortable, sometimes they have trouble with the cut, we’ll see what happens.”
DAVE FARRA: “I don’t think that will be the case for Urijah Faber. I wonder what it was like for Joseph Benavidez when Urijah told him. ‘Oh you’re dropping down are you, you son of a bitch?’ ”
REED HARRIS: “I think Joseph rents a house from him or something, too.”
DAVE FARRA: “If you beat me, I’m going to evict you!”
MAHONEY: “Turn off his power a week before the fight.”
Topics: Media, MMA, WEC, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Teammates should either fight each other or move weight classes.
Fitch is saying if Koscheck beats GSP, he will move to Middleweight. That’s the right mentality. If they don’t want to fight, make it impossible to do so.
I can see Benavidez being the face of the new Flyweight division if he loses. If he wins I think Faber just does a Franklin and fights big fights at either BW or FW, whenever needed.
[…] If you recall Dave Farra’s interview with Reed Harris last week, the topic of Urijah Faber vs. Joseph Benavidez in the Bantamweight division of WEC came up. While Reed expressed interest in booking the bout, he was also slightly hedging his bets when the topic came up and brought up the fact that Urijah would probably move back up if Faber and Benavidez were going to be matched up at 135. […]