UFC 197 News: Ex-Featherweight Champ Urijah Faber Shares His Thoughts On McGregor Versus Dos Anjos
Former World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) featherweight champion and mixed martial arts veteran Urijah Faber recently gave his take on the upcoming lightweight title fight between Rafael dos Anjos and Conor McGregor.
The said fight will be the headliner for UFC 197, which is scheduled for March 5 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. It was a fight that McGregor had intended to have right after his 13-second finish of former long-time featherweight champion José Aldo at UFC 194 last December.
Recently, "The California Kid" spoke about his thoughts regarding the said fight between dos Anjos and McGregor. Faber had the opportunity to get to know "The Notorious" a little better when they coached against each other during the 22nd season of the Ultimate Fighter reality series.
In an interview with Jonathan Shrager for MixedMartialArts.com, Faber says it all depends on which fighter can effectively implement their respective strategies. He believes dos Anjos may take a page out of Chad Mendes' book and try to wrestle and grapple with the Irish fighter.
Faber adds that McGregor would be placed in a great disadvantage if that happens.
"If that's the case it's going to be a bad day for Conor," Faber said. "Unless Conor makes some big improvements, which I would think and hope as a world champion and student of the sport that he's wrestling and doing jiu jitsu every day. If he does his homework it's anybody's fight."
McGregor and Mendes faced each other at UFC 189 in July, when the latter stepped in with two weeks' notice as a replacement for the then injured José Aldo.
In the said fight, Mendes found success by taking McGregor down, then use some ground-and-pound. The fight, however, came to an abrupt end when McGregor was able to get the fight back on the feet, then score a second round knockout victory.
