Mike Thomas Brown Gives WEC Marquee Matchup with Fast Win

The Zuffa-owned WEC has struggled to find the best way to market their best division, the featherweight decision.  Led by the ultra-marketable (and ultra-talented) Urijah Faber, who is one of the sport’s most skilled fighters that doesn’t regularly fight on the UFC’s pay-per-views, there have been plenty of attempts to give Faber the kind of challenge he needs to capitalize on the growing fan interest he has brought to the division. 

The best efforts before Mike Thomas Brown fought Faber were when former UFC Lightweight Champion and future Hall of Famer Jens Pulver dropped to 145 pounds and won his first fight in the WEC to earn a title shot.  However, while Pulver took Faber the full five rounds in their first fight, Faber rarely looked to be in any real trouble against the veteran fighter.  Again, the fight was noteworthy for pushing Faber to the full five rounds, but that is mostly because Faber has been so dominant since joining the WEC, where none of his other fights had gone longer than two rounds.

When Brown got his title shot against the seemingly invincible Faber last November, it did not seem like any reason to raise the eyebrows of MMA fans, who had gotten used to seeing Faber dispatch talented fighters.  Brown brought a seven fight winning streak into the cage with him that night, including wins over Yves Edwards and Jeff Curran in Brown’s WEC debut.  Of course, anyone who saw the 36th installment of World Extreme Cagefighting knows that the story ended up being much different than expected.

While MMA fans really should not need regular reminders that anything can happen in such a dynamic sport, Brown’s win over Faber certainly cemented that fact.  Jaws simultaneously dropped as Brown landed a good shot on Faber, and then put him down hard as Faber tried to come back with an unorthodox reverse elbow strike aimed at Brown’s dome.  The finish was as explosive and sudden as many of Faber’s wins had been to that point.

Of course, the path to what seemed like an inevitable rematch had just begun, and Brown and Faber would need to come up big in their next fights to allow a rematch to be as big as it should be.  Neither fighter disappointed.  Faber fought Pulver again in a bit of a matchmaking head-scratcher, and nonetheless was able to submit the former champion in just over a minute and a half for an impressive victory.

Then, just this last weekend, Brown answered the call by utterly dominating a fighter who posed a serious threat in Leonard Garcia.  Brown was able to rock Garcia with the same power he displayed against Faber, and then used high-paced submission attempts to catch Garcia for good with an arm triangle with just over three minutes to go in the first round.  And with that, Brown was officially the featherweight champion of the organization.  All systems are definitely now a go for a deservedly hyped up rematch.

Brown has been able to showcase the type of explosiveness and technical expertise that facing a fighter the caliber of Faber surely requires.  For this reason, his victory over Faber, which was dismissed by some as fluky and the result of a poor Faber decision, is looking more and more legitimate by the day.  Brown not only has shown that he’s a legitimate featherweight champion, he believes that he has the goods to hold on to the belt for some time to come.  When he and Faber meet once again, we will find out if he’s correct.

by Jon Hartley for Fightmania.com

Tags: Jens Pulver, UFC, WEC