Urijah Faber Drops to 135 Pounds

Urijah Faber (23-4) talked recently about dropping down to the bantamweight division and now it’s official.

The former WEC featherweight champion will make the move down to 135lbs for his next fight on August 18 as he faces Japanese fighter Takeya Mizugaki (13-4-2) in the WEC.

Faber has fought at bantamweight in the past, earning the King Of The Cage bantamweight title in 2004 against Eben Kaneshiro. He eventually moved on to the WEC and won the featherweight title in 2006 at WEC 19 and successfully defended the belt for another five times.

“The California Kid” made two more attempts at the featherweight title, losing to Mike Brown and then to Jose Aldo in his last fight. Aldo earned a unanimous decision over Faber in the headliner for WEC’s first ever pay-per-view event at WEC 48.

The fight will be Mizugaki’s fifth WEC match when the two meet in August. So far he’s 2-2 with the promotion, earning a unanimous decision over Rani Yahya as part of the same ppv event at WEC 48. He lost to Scott Jorgensen at WEC 45 via unanimous decision, earned a split decision over Jeff Curran at WEC 42, and lost to former bantamweight champ Miguel Torres at WEC 40.