Breaking Down WEC 52: Faber Vs. Mizugaki

Added on Nov 08, 2010 by John Petit in

UFC & MMA

Yes, thats right! Faber vs Mizugaki is finally going to happen. This fight was originally scheduled to take place at WEC 50, but Faber was forced off the card with an injury. After taking just two wins in his last five fights, and running in the force of nature in the 145lb weight division Jose Aldo, he decided to come down in weight to 135lbs. His opponent is Takeya Mizugaki who is the brave soul who made his WEC debut against Miguel Torres for the Bantamweight strap, and fought him to fight of the night Decision. He didn’t win the bout, but won thousands of fans for the performance.

Urijah Faber (23-4) is training at Team Alpha Male out of Sacramento he has mainly been using his Purple Belt to submit fighters. 12 of his wins come by way of submission, and 7 of them by TKO/KO. He has been known to use his fast pace, and grappling skills to confuse opponents enough to gain the upper hand on them. This type of “thinking outside the box” is what got him knocked out cold by Mike Brown when he bounced off the cage to throw a spinning back elbow.

Takeya Mizugaki is the type of fighter who is competent at everything. He has good ground skills, has decent stand up, and average grappling. He doesn’t really excel in any one category, and that could be his problem in this fight. His saving grace is his ability to stay in the fight. He has only been TKO/KO’d once in his career.

This fight will be a perfect for the main event for the second to last WEC event. Who ever you decide to pick, you can pretty much count on this one going to judges score card. Barring any dumb idea to throwing a spinning back crescent elbow off the fence and getting caught by an over hand right from Mizugaki, this one will be decided by the judges. Everyone knows and “loves” Faber, and he is a great poster boy for the WEC (which is soon to be the UFC.) They need Faber to not fall into the category of the champ who used to be something in the WEC, because the guy will sell pay per views in the UFC come 2011. This will be a close fight, and it will go back and fourth. However, I do think Faber will do just enough to win each round. If he feels he might be losing some of the stand up exchanges he will rely on his grappling to control Mizugaki for the last two rounds. I’m picking Faber by Unanimous Decision.

This fight will do what the UFC wants it to do, and give Faber a chance to make a run at the bantamweight title, and perhaps fight Dominick Cruz.