These two fighters deserve our respect
Despite no UFC gold, Urijah Faber and Michael Bisping have fashioned formidable careers
All too often in sports, athletes are defined, first and foremost, on their championship accomplishments — or lack thereof.
We count rings, measuring who’s got them against who doesn’t, and by using the yardstick of how many fingers are adorned with bling in delineating all-time greats, we often overlook the depth and breadth of an athlete’s career.
It’s fun to count rings, but pointless, since there are plenty of role-players without them in every sport.
Winning a title in any sport, whether as a team or individual, is really damn hard and this approach ignores that truth.
Saturday night inside The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., two fighters that know all too well how difficult it can be to claim UFC gold and who have had their overall accomplishments diminished will step into the Octagon.
Urijah Faber is one of the best fighters to ever compete south of the lightweight division. Long before featherweight was a division in the UFC, The California Kid ruled the weight class, winning gold in both King of the Cage and the WEC, where he would ultimately go on to be the face of the promotion.
Despite a phenomenal record and championship past, the main thing Faber is known for now, however, is his “0-for” in championship bouts since losing the WEC featherweight strap to Mike Brown.
Michael Bisping is third all-time in most UFC appearances and tied with Hall of Famer Matt Hughes for second all-time in UFC wins with 18, one behind former welterweight king Georges St-Pierre, yet his bout with Luke Rockhold in the UFC 199 main event will be his first shot at championship gold.
He’s been close to this position before, but always came up short and those losses have come to define a fighter known as The Count.
Even though neither has been able to reach the summit of their respective divisions in the UFC, what they’ve managed to do over the course of their careers is remarkable and deserves recognition.
Saturday’s championship bout comes three weeks before the 10-year anniversary of Bisping’s official Octagon debut, and for most of that time, the 37-year-old Manchester man has been a Top 10 fixture, a feat not many fighters can say they’ve accomplished.
Faber can. In fact, he’s one-upped Bisping in terms of longevity in the rankings, having been entrenched in the Top 5 at bantamweight since the division debuted in the UFC. He held the same standing at featherweight during the final couple of years the WEC was in business.
While they’ve never won UFC gold, they’ve crafted the kind of careers many of their contemporaries would sell their souls to have, remaining relevant and active in the main event picture fight after fight, year after year.
Neither man has ever lost consecutive bouts, an achievement that doesn’t get enough mention because given the number of things that can happen in a mixed martial arts bout, it’s pretty easy to lose back-to-back contests.
Yet they’ve both managed to avoid such a fate despite having over 70 professional fights between them.
Both Faber and Bisping are underdogs on Saturday, entering rematches with champions that beat them last time out.
But even if they lose they have fashioned amazing careers for themselves and accomplished more than most, including a whole host of fighters who have worn UFC gold in the past.