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UFC Fight Night 66: Edgar vs. Faber
By: Freddy Wander - StatFox
Published: 4/14/2015  at  4:45:00 AM
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UFC Fight Night 66: Edgar vs. Faber

Saturday, May 16th – 10:00 a.m. ET
Manila, Philippines

Frankie Edgar (17-4-1) vs. Urijah Faber (32-7-0)

Five Round Featherweight Bout
Line: N/A

Frankie “The Answer” Edgar looks to get back in the featherweight title fight by taking down 35-year-old Urijah “California Kid” Faber at UFC Fight Night.

Edgar joined the UFC back in 2007 and was an instant success, starting out his career with three straight wins before losing to Gray Maynard via unanimous decision in his fourth bout. He then grabbed the lightweight belt in early 2010 and held on to it for nearly two years before giving it up to Benson Henderson. After two losses to Henderson, Edgar made the move to the featherweight division and was given the green light to contend for the title against Jose Aldo, a fight which he would lose but earned the fighters “Fight of the Night” honors. He is making his way back to a title fight with three straight victories coming into this one, using different tactics each time with a unanimous decision, TKO (punches) and submission (neck crank) most recently. Faber is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt who has been around the UFC since early 2011 and after losing two of his first four matches, has come around to win six of the last seven heading into this matchup. Unfortunately, the one loss that he took in that time was for the bantamweight title when he was defeated by Renan Barao after being knocked out with punches in the first round. Faber is amazing with submissions and has been able to win with this method in six of his last seven victories and 19 of his 32 career victories. Both fighters are tremendous in this main card event and both have earned plenty of awards when in the octagon as Edgar’s grabbed “Fight of the Night” seven times in his 17 UFC fights and this one should prove to be quite entertaining.

“The Answer” has spent a ton of time either going for or defending a title in his career and can thank his aggressive style for that as he lands 3.52 significant strikes per minute on just 40% accuracy. The reason that he has earned a majority of his wins by decision (9) is because even though he is not always knocking out his opponent with those strikes, he is getting them in and allowing them to land a mere 2.09 strikes on him, deflecting 71% of them away. He does like to get his opponent on the mat as well, doing so 2.71 times per 15 minutes but mainly due to aggressiveness as his accuracy in takedown attempts is just 38%. He was phenomenal in his last fight against Cub Swanson, though, getting him down seven times and had by far his most passes (16) since joining UFC. Edgar also landed 46% of his 202 strike attempts in the bout with 77-of-93 significant strikes landed aimed at the head. He does not often go for the submission with just 0.4 attempted per 15 minutes, but still can get it done that way if necessary with four of his 18 career wins being a submission; including against Swanson when he performed a neck crank on his second attempt. Edgar has been tough to beat as he’s defended against takedowns 63% of the time and will be eager to get his fourth straight victory.

Faber has been the king of the submission as he uses his Brazilian jiu-jitsu background to earn the win with this method more often than not. He averaged 1.1 submission attempts per 15 minutes after getting them on the ground 1.71 times in 15 minutes at 34% accuracy. He won’t typically allow his opponent to get the upper hand on him as his defense in solid, defending against a takedown 58% of the time and deflecting 65% of strikes against him. Over the last two fights, Faber has taken only 35 significant strikes from his opponents, but has landed only 39 of his own as his style is better suited with fewer punches taken. In his last fight against Francisco Rivera, he would not allow him to get anything done, landing a meager 15-of-56 significant strikes (26%) and getting to Faber’s head just seven times. “California Kid” will need to win with a submission once again in this tough matchup since he usually gets hit (2.25 SApM) nearly as often as he land strikes (2.67 SLpM), which won’t come easily against a fighter of Edgar’s caliber.


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