What Mike Brown's Second Win Over Urijah Faber Means for the Featherweight Division

by Luke Thomas on Jun 9, 2009 8:14 AM EDT in MMA News

Mike-brown_medium Jordan Breen contextualizes the achievement of the ATT stand out:

For at least half of his reign, the featherweight division virtually existed only within pro Shooto, meaning that he [Alexandre Nogueira] was the best fighter of about two dozen total in his weight class, beating the likes of Tetsuo Katsuta and Stephen Palling. From about 2004 onward -- when opportunities began to crop up for featherweights globally and the division began to broaden -- he fought sparsely, and against none of the top emergent talents, until his smashing last year at the hands of supernova Jose Aldo.

Beating your best contemporaries is always the measuring stick for prizefighting, but there does need to be some sort of baseline of quality established. It's the same reason it's asinine to compare the accomplishments of Royce Gracie and Fedor Emelianenko. As soon as featherweight became a legitimate, serious division, "Pequeno" was done. Though I'm sure his knee troubles didn't help, his losses to Hideo Tokoro and Jose Aldo affirmed that he was no world-beater. It's little wonder he so cravenly ducked Gilbert Melendez three years ago.

The featherweight division is now a full-fledged galaxy, with global giants rather than regionalized dwarves, replete with luminosity and magnitude (how much longer can I milk the astronomy angle?). In this modern division, Brown is the first fighter to truly reign over other great fighters to any extent.

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And due to the rapid emergence of talent in the division

it will be very interesting to see just how long Brown can reign at the top.
His size, skill set and grit make him a tough opponent for anyone.
I’m particularly skeptical that Aldo is the man to beat Brown — he’s not likely to blow Brown away with an early blitz.

"the spirit of your average dumbass with more overblown rhetoric" OR "the self-appointed savior of MMA"

by Kid Nate on Jun 9, 2009 9:42 AM EDT reply actions

Brown vs Aldo, please. I can’t wait for that fight.

by ricker2005 on Jun 9, 2009 10:55 AM EDT reply actions

If I understand Breen’s point correctly, I still disagree with his claim that Brown is the first “center of the galaxy” featherweight. The main reason that Brown is seen that way is because he has decisively beaten Faber twice. Pre-Brown, everything that has been said about Brown in that article could be said of Faber (plus Faber’s star power being the principal force behind the ascension of the division). And Breen’s argument that dismissing Faber as a possibility for that first spot:

However, despite the fact that Faber is undeniably an elite fighter, his resume is built more on quantity rather than quality. His best wins over fighters who had achieved within the 145-pound division are Jeff Curran, Jens Pulver and Ivan Menjivar. Conversely, Brown has beaten four straight top-10 opponents, including Curran and Faber himself twice.

hits me as an incredibly wishy-washy metric. It’s also weird to say, “Faber doesn’t have as many top-5/top-10 wins as Brown”, given that most of those guys ranked are so ranked because of the comparison of their accomplishments to Faber (via common opponents, fighting Faber himself, etc.). Brown, in this instance, is essentially capitalizing on the spoils of Faber’s dominance. Ultimately, it’s a minor quibble, but I still don’t agree with the argument.

All that said, go Brownie. You deserve any and all adoration you receive.

"I see him beating Anderson Silva. I see him picking him apart. Him at a 131 years old...(trails off)." - Tito on Belfort at Affliction:DOR

by Rundownloser on Jun 9, 2009 11:04 AM EDT reply actions

Yeah I agree. This is like Anderson Silva and Rich Franklin. Rich dominated that division and Anderson first gained major notoriety by beating him twice. Rich is still a legend and a true former king of his division

by Flyghtt on Jun 9, 2009 12:22 PM EDT up reply actions

Rich dominated the UFC division, not the MMA division. There was plenty of talent at PRIDE at the time.

Faber has no notable wins, he never reigned the FW division. He reigned the American FW division, but Kid, Pequeno, Aldo, Brown, Imanari, and others have had much more competition than Faber did in the US.

by MMASuPreMaCy on Jun 9, 2009 12:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, beating Jens Pulver when Pulver was about 137-0 at 145 isn’t notable.

Your anti-WEC and anti-Faber posts as of late are just silly.

by Derek Suboticki on Jun 9, 2009 1:17 PM EDT up reply actions

They may be silly, but in this case he’s pretty much right. Faber has a few good wins, maybe even including the first one over Jens depending on how shot you think Pulver was by then, but his competition was never all that deep. Go look through his record and tell me how many really impressive wins you see there.

Also, how many fights did Jens actually have at FW before the first Faber fight? I know there was all that talk of him being undefeated at the weight, but I’m genuinely curious about what his FW record really looks like.

by FRANKIE on Jun 9, 2009 1:40 PM EDT up reply actions

7-0 I think

A man should never waste an opportunity to keep his mouth shut.

by iiowyn on Jun 9, 2009 4:36 PM EDT up reply actions

So it’s a pretty small part of his career. Do you have any idea who he was fighting?

by FRANKIE on Jun 9, 2009 5:44 PM EDT up reply actions

Pulver?

I love Pulver, but they guy has lost 6 of his last 7 fights.

by MMASuPreMaCy on Jun 9, 2009 2:08 PM EDT up reply actions

P.S.

Where did I say I was anti-WEC?
Anti Faber Hype Train? Yes. Anti WEC? No. WEC is awesome.

by MMASuPreMaCy on Jun 9, 2009 2:09 PM EDT up reply actions

Getting really excited about any FW champion strikes me as premature. The UFC/WEC split means the true elite FWs are plying their trade in the UFC’s LW division.

Frankie Edgar is probably the greatest FW in the world right now.

by Foxskinrug on Jun 9, 2009 1:37 PM EDT reply actions

Imagine adding Tyson Griffin to that mix too.

by bigweeze on Jun 10, 2009 12:32 AM EDT up reply actions

Not really, being good at one weight doesn’t mean you’re going to be great in another Frankie could get pushed around by someone like Brown just as easily as he was by Maynard.

by Raker on Jun 9, 2009 3:49 PM EDT reply actions

Possibly but Maynard is a good deal larger than Brown, and one of the things GSP v Penn II demonstrated was that size does matter (i.e. there are weight classes for a reason).

Honestly, there is no definitive answer about Edgar’s FW status because there simply isn’t sufficient data (though I would love to see him drop down and test his mettle against the WEC’s best 145’ers—unfortunately it probably won’t happen because he’s doing fine at 155 and making more money at the big show for the time being).

by Estrada on Jun 9, 2009 4:19 PM EDT up reply actions