Brown-Faber Fight Reinforces Reasons Why MMA is Great

Mike Brown may be leaving California with the belt, but both he and challenger Urijah Faber have reasons to keep their heads up after their great five-round title fight on Sunday night.  Brown showed that he has the fundamental skills and physical ability to suppress even a talent the likes of Faber, who even with a broken hand, never stops finding ways to put his opponents in danger.  At this point, a third fight is inevitable, as it should be after Faber put on a very competitive fight even after a serious injury in the first round.

However, rather than just analyzing the outcome of the Brown-Faber fight, let’s think about what this fight in particular displays about the sport of mixed martial arts.  First, you can see the athleticism that it takes to succeed in MMA at a high level, as these two world-class featherweights were lightning-quick even into the late rounds, and able to display a combination of strength, agility and speed that is hard to find even among elite athletes.

Also, all the technical aspects of mixed martial arts were on display in this fight.  Faber extensively utilized his jab along with wilder, looping punches when his hands still allowed them.  Meanwhile, Brown used a tight, more fundamentally-oriented boxing style.  Then, both fighters used kicks, with Faber even building most of his attack on them in the later rounds.  We saw knees from the Muay Thai clinch tonight, techniques from wrestling and several submission attempts and escapes from jiu-jitsu.

Finally, this fight displayed the heart that these fighters have, which is what truly sets them apart from other athletes.  Faber never thought of quitting, even when his ability to mount a dangerous offense from strikes was effectively crippled.  Instead, he adapted (as MMA fighters are constantly forced to do) and persevered.  How many baseball players would press on with a broken hand?  How many players in any sport would continue when to compete when the very tools they need to excel are taken from them?

Of course, part of this is due to necessity.  A baseball player would know that one of his teammates would help the team more than he would with a broken hand, so the decision to sit out wouldn’t be based purely on lack of fortitude.  In the cage, there is no way to better serve your overall goal (to win, that is) by calling it quits.  This is a characteristic of all individual sports, including mixed martial arts.  To quit is to lose, and so fighters do what comes naturally to people who make a living through facing challenges that most of us would flee from: they fight.

This fight shows once again that MMA fighters are among the most versatile athletes in the world.  They are versatile not just in the skills that they utilize, but they also have to be willing to adapt their mentalities and even their philosophies towards competition at a moment’s notice.

Faber, who has fought most of his career as the fighter with more talent and athleticism than his opponents, was suddenly forced to take the role of a fighter who doesn’t have the tools that his opponent has, but must try to find a way to win, regardless.  In a way, the injury that he sustained forced him to live four rounds within the shoes of his former opponents.  Meanwhile, Mike Brown, who has always lived deep in the shadow of talents such as Faber and “Kid” Yamamoto during his career, fought brilliantly against his weakened opponent and grew into the role of champion before our very eyes.

Few sports could tell the kind of story that Brown-Faber told, and do so with the kind of drama that MMA allows its competitors to provide.  Detractors of the sport can only see blood and brutality when two men face each other in the cage, but they are merely victims of their own ignorance.  There is beauty there, if you know where to look for it.

 by Jon Hartley for Fightmania.com

Tags: Mike Brown