- [Will] This is Urijah Faber.
- He keeps talking about how he's
been touching the belt,
it sounds like some
sort of pervert.
Pick up the belt like a man. - That's why he's
The California Kid.
- [Will] This is Dominick Cruz.
- I'll bring a soapbox for you
to talk on when we weigh in, all right?
That way you can look at me - Hey I'm, hey,
I'm the perfect-- - in the eyes like a man.
- If it wasn't clear from them
talking to and about one another, they don't get along.
They beefed for nearly a decade, had a trilogy of fights
and their hatred for each other was strong enough
that it actually helped shape the future of the UFC.
(soft instrumental music)
The history between Urijah Faber and Dominick Cruz
was beefy from day one.
Set to fight in March of 2007, things sparked ahead
of their first meet up at World Extreme Cagefighting 26.
As soon as the pair were introduced
to one another, Cruz felt slighted.
Faber eyed the challenger up and down in a way
that gave Cruz further reason to look forward to the fight.
He got a chance to take out some frustration
thanks to the event's promoters.
As Faber chronicled in his book "The Laws of the Ring",
the fighters had to sign posters,
they just happened to not have Cruz's picture on them.
So in protest, every signature that Cruz made
was placed right across Faber's face.
Petty, yes.
But it's pretty good beefception.
It helps a little bit to know
where these guys were coming from.
By 2007, Faber was already The California Kid.
He was marketable even before the sport
broke into the mainstream.
And as a fighter in a lighter weight class, that was huge.
He wasn't too far removed from having to bus tables,
sell self-made shirts, serve as an assistant coach
for the football team at UC Davis,
all while training for fights
that weren't guaranteed to even happen.
And with all that going on,
Faber had lost just once in his professional MMA career.
He became the featherweight champion of the WEC,
an organization that in 2006 was purchased by Zuffa
and was serving more or less as the UFC's battleground
for bantam and featherweights.
So, as the matchup with Cruz loomed,
he was essentially big time in a world
where it wasn't easy to gain status.
Meanwhile his opponent was back where Faber had been
a few years prior.
Cruz was still working a full-time job
as he trained for a chance at the belt.
He didn't have a cornerman or a manager,
but neither the work nor the chance at a championship
was too foreign for Cruz.
He had worked multiple jobs to put himself
through college, and while trying to make a name for himself
took whatever came his way.
After a fight at 155 pounds fell through,
he was offered one at 145 with two weeks notice.
He took the fight, won it and then proceeded
to earn both the lightweight and featherweight championships
in a promotion called Total Combat.
Those titles, plus an undefeated record,
earned him a chance with the WEC and a date with Faber.
Leading up to the fight, Faber didn't seem too stressed.
He didn't even watch any of Cruz's previous fights.
And once March 24th, 2007 came around,
the 27 year old vet taught
the 21 year old challenger a lesson.
Faber caught Cruz in a guillotine choke,
Cruz tapped and the fight was over,
just a minute and 38 seconds into the first round.
And from there everyone had to wait for another serving.
After the first professional loss of his career,
Cruz dropped down to bantamweight,
while Faber continued to defend his featherweight belt.
That is until he faced Mike Brown.
He lost his title, then two fights later
made it 0-2 against Brown.
Another two fights after that,
he once again had a chance to recapture the belt
but this time lost to Jose Aldo.
Despite those challenges, part of his mind
was still on Cruz.
Even though he got the win when they faced off,
Faber hadn't shaken the disrespect.
He thought of Cruz as an immature punk,
and Faber made it clear he didn't like the guy.
After his record quickly dropped from 21-1
to 23-4, Faber joined Cruz at bantamweight.
And Cruz at bantamweight had become a scary thing.
When Faber changed classes in 2010,
Cruz had already set himself up at the top.
After the loss to The California Kid,
Cruz put together a fresh win streak,
which including two decisions over Joseph Benavidez,
one of the members of Team Alpha Male,
which had been founded by Faber.
The second of those was a defense of the WEC
bantamweight belt, which Cruz had won a fight earlier.
And as he defended it through 2010,
the timing worked out pretty well.
The WEC and UFC fully merged on January 1st, 2011.
This meant a few things,
the lighter weight classes of WEC
would now get a larger stage.
With that came bigger paydays as the UFC could afford
to pay their fighters better.
Faber was excited for what it meant,
both for the sport and for himself.
And as one of the WEC's most marketable faces,
there was a sense of relief that he no longer
had to solely carry the load for the promotion.
But while Faber dreamt of owning a UFC belt,
for Cruz it was already a reality.
Since the UFC didn't have a bantamweight division,
once Cruz defended his title
at WEC 53 against Scott Jorgensen,
he became the UFC's bantamweight champ.
That also meant he could call out whoever he wanted,
and he went straight for Faber.
He even offered an excuse for his doubters
and guaranteed this time around his focus would allow
everyone to see that he was on a different level from Faber.
And wouldn't you know, the UFC heard him.
The rematch was set for July 2011.
Faber made his intentions clear,
while also perfectly dating when all of this went down.
The beef is back.
Now with a fresh date things heated back up.
Cruz spoke about how everything had ramped up even further.
New shots were fired and he put
his thoughts simply, Faber sucks.
For Faber, leading up to the fight he scored himself
as the favorite in most categories
and made sure to point out where Cruz's deficiencies were.
He criticized Cruz for not finishing his fights
and if prophesying wasn't enough,
he didn't let folks forget what happened
the first time around.
Basically, while he lost a couple of fights,
he never lost his confidence.
But none of it phased Cruz.
While defending his belt,
he had handled everything Team Alpha Male threw his way
and knew that was hurting Faber
in a way that records couldn't show.
The talk never ended leading up to the fight,
and once again for promotional sake
they were forced into close quarters.
Before they could headline the event,
they spent time at Camp Pendleton
training with some marines.
They had to work together and chatted face to face.
Faber got to know Cruz a bit better as a person.
While he had no plans other than taking the belt,
he got a better sense at what pushed his opponent.
Cruz was Faber's opposite as far as what motivated him.
According to Urijah the champ fed off of negativity.
He was fueled by jealousy and revenge
while Faber was all about positivity.
But The California Kid still knew
what it was all about at the end of the day,
and regardless of the outcome not much would change.
Faber was hoping one thing would change though,
he came into the rematch 0-3
in his recent title fights and knew there was
a little extra on the line this time around.
He also figured a win for him was a win for the UFC,
as in his mind no one would ever respect Cruz as the champ.
Faber wasn't necessarily wrong.
As of that moment, he was capable of bringing
more money to the UFC than Cruz could,
but thankfully these fights aren't scripted.
The guys battled and fought, and went the whole five rounds.
And after both fighters backed up their talk,
the judges unanimously decided
that Cruz would keep the belt.
He defended his UFC championship and in his mind
was back to being undefeated now that he avenged
the only loss in his career.
Cruz proved his doubters wrong and made plans
to stick around for a long time.
He also found a new way to poke Faber.
After the decision, Cruz's corner presented him
with a blue belt in Jiu-Jitsu.
This was in response to Faber having his brown belt
ceremony after he beat Eddie Wineland in his UFC debut.
It was an untraditional move,
usually reserved for black belt presentations.
But for Cruz, his ceremony was all about the message.
It was a way to say, hey Faber, you just lost to a guy
who before the fight hadn't earned a belt
other than what you get as a day one Jiu-Jitsu student.
And as folks immediately asked for a third fight,
Cruz was just a little confident in his chances
against Faber if they got a rubber match.
After Cruz successfully defended the belt
against Demetrious Johnson, the UFC decided to schedule
the trilogy fight in the grandest of fashion.
The duo was tagged to coach "The Ultimate Fighter" TV show
and headline the event at its conclusion.
Unfortunately, while filming the season
Cruz tore his ACL, and bad turned to worse
when his body rejected the cadaver.
So, a second surgery was needed,
which sidelined him an additional 12 months.
At that point, Cruz had been forced out of action
long enough that the UFC decided
an interim title was necessary.
Faber put the rivalry aside and wished Cruz the best.
He had watched his foe rise up in the UFC
and recognized that the passion he had
was great for the sport.
Plus, until Cruz got healthy,
Faber couldn't prove himself the better fighter.
But his legacy took another hit when he lost to Renan Barao
for the interim bantamweight title.
Once Cruz's knee was 100%, a date was set to unify the belt.
This time though, The Dominator was forced out of the fight
with Barao due to a groin tear.
With that, his title was vacated
and Faber once again stepped up into his place.
But, once again, Barao got the best of him,
this time in the first round.
So, it was a tough period for both fighters.
But tough times are really just beef fuel.
A few things happened, Faber strung together
a couple wins, then swapped decisions
with the Frankies, Edgar then Saenz.
Cruz got healthy, and after knocking out Mizugaki
just over a minute into his return,
went and beat a member of Team Alpha Male, TJ Dillashaw,
to once again sit atop the bantamweight division.
With that, the next reasonable step
was to complete the trilogy,
and that meant Cruz and Faber would again share a stage,
a true gift to all.
- He keeps talking about how he's
been touching the belt, - Look he takes,
he's like a little kid. - it sound like some
sort of pervert.
Pick up the belt like a man. - That's why he's
The California Kid.
I'll bring a soapbox for you
to talk on when we weigh in, all right?
That way you can look at me - Hey I'm, hey,
I'm the perfect height. - in the eyes like a man.
- [Urijah] Don't worry about that.
- You and your close eyes.
- I'm gonna whoop this dude, it's gonna be ugly.
- You have nothing but excuses,
and you're gonna have more excuses
after I beat you tomorrow.
- [Urijah] Sweet, not gonna happen.
- [Will] The duo proved that despite being
almost a decade old, their beef was as fresh as ever.
Most of the press conference was spent with one of them
trying to prove the other wrong, no matter the topic.
Even Dana White knew this was something special.
- [Journalist] For you, do you feel
this is one of the greatest rivalries in MMA history?
- Yeah, they're two of the best in the division ever
and this goes a long way.
He won the first fight, he won the second fight,
and this is the trilogy fight.
And obviously these two do not like each other,
and these are fun fights when they happen.
- And once it happened, it was again a win for Cruz.
He lived up to his Dominator nickname on the way
to another unanimous decision.
As Cruz remained undefeated when defending the title,
Faber dropped to 0-4 in his attempts
to win a belt in the UFC.
He was for once left somewhat speechless,
and gave credit to Cruz.
Afterward, Faber who was at this point nearly 13 years
into his professional career, had the future on his mind.
And while he was mainly talking about retirement,
there was a different part of the future
also tied to Faber's legacy.
And that different part went by the name Cody Garbrandt.
He was the latest young bantamweight to represent
Team Alpha Male and he was quickly on the rise,
making some noise in hopes of a chance at the belt.
But for Cruz, he wasn't listening.
He insisted the kid wasn't on his radar,
other than as another way for Faber to make some money.
And considering his success against Faber, Dillashaw
and Benavidez, Cruz wasn't about to sweat what else
that team could throw at him.
Having not lost in over nine years,
he was who everyone else had to set
their sights on, in the same way Cruz
used to be looking up at Faber.
I mean look at this Garbrandt quote,
while the confidence was definitely a theme from Alpha Male,
it also showed how long Cruz had dominated
and forced every young bantamweight to dream
of the chance to take him on.
Garbrandt continued to make his presence known
and looked to have fully taken the flame from Faber.
But Cruz responded to Team Alpha Male
as a whole, get in line.
He really wasn't concerning himself with them
and had his mind on bigger things,
like finding a way to make a super fight happen.
As for the Alpha Male leader,
he nixed the idea of hanging it up and was still hoping
to get back on top.
But a loss to Jimmie Rivera three months later
forced him to change his tune.
He announced that his next fight would be his last,
and he'd get to call it a career back in his hometown.
With that decision, it looked like the beef
would retire with him.
Cruz wished his rival nothing but the best
and praised what Faber had been able to do.
He finally opened up about how much Faber
meant to his own career.
He credited The California Kid with making it possible
for lighter weight fighters to even be a thing.
He said that without Faber, an early star in the sport,
the lighter weight classes might not have been made.
While Faber was at the top,
Cruz was learning and growing under him
and there was an appreciation for that.
And once Faber got the decision against Brad Pickett,
the pair fully put the rivalry to rest.
On FS1's post-fight show, Cruz gave him a gift.
He presented Faber with a poster from their very first fight
that he had signed, but this time not across Urijah's face.
- I would say you could write on my face, but guess what?
It's not on there.
- [Will] With that and a handshake,
it was all in the past for these two.
But a week later, Cruz's beef with the Alpha Males
continued as Garbrandt had managed
to get a shot at the belt.
And after nearly a decade of domination,
Cruz lost for just the second time in his career.
While not ideal for the man himself,
it feels like a perfect ending to the individual rivalry.
The loss returned Cruz to a place
he'd have to fight up from.
It gave him fresh motivation as he'd always been driven
by being the underdog and by negativity.
And while he no longer had Faber
actively breathing down his neck,
the fighter he had grown
into and the place he had established
himself in was in part thanks to his long time rival.
That rival now was able to sit back and let the team
he built run the show in the division
that he had also helped build.
His career, long guided by confidence and positivity,
had paid off in a way that let him once again
sit atop the division without needing
to do the actual fighting.
And while the itch would return,
bringing him out of retirement
for a fight against Ricky Simon,
the beef with Cruz has remained in the past.
Their rivalry helped grow the sport into what it is today.
It paved the way for smaller guys to make money
and build names for themselves.
And in simpler terms, it was entertaining as hell.
Congratulations, now you don't have to eat lunch.
Subscribe to SB Nation and if you want
hit the bell for notifications.
Since you've stuck around,
here's a true fight classic that you'll love.
It's a rewinder of Tyson versus Douglas,
or dive into this other video and we'll see ya soon.
(soft instrumental music)