Urijah Faber knows he’ll be shorter, smaller and older than Arman Tsarukyan at RAF 8 — but so what?

When Urijah Faber first heard Real American Freestyle wished to match him up with prime UFC light-weight contender Arman Tsarukyan at Saturday’s RAF 8 occasion in Philadelphia, he had one fast query.

“I was like, ‘Are you guys sure you want me to wrestle him?’” Faber advised Uncrowned this week. “I mean, he’s a lot bigger than I am.”

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This is true. Tsarukyan competes at 155 kilos within the UFC, but usually walks round weighing someplace within the 180-pound vary. Faber competed primarily within the 145- and 135-pound divisions throughout his MMA profession, which ended with a knockout loss to present UFC bantamweight champ Petr Yan in 2019.

Now he is a 46-year-old dad and enterprise proprietor. He stays in fine condition and will get on the mats as a lot as he presumably can, but out of the blue the RAF organizers need him to sq. off with a 29-year-old UFC contender who seems to be firing on all cylinders as he enters his athletic prime? It appeared like rather a lot to ask from this gentleman of a sure age.

“He’ll have a distinct size advantage over me,” Faber stated. “And a youth advantage. And a couple other things. But wrestling is fun for me. It’s not some difficult task. It’s the type of sport that allows you to jump into a situation where the odds are stacked against you, but it’s not a problem. I was kind of a late bloomer in wrestling anyway, and what I realized is that none of that matters. You just believe in yourself and your skill set and go out and have fun.”

This is partly how RAF has managed to maintain grabbing the eye of not simply freestyle wrestling purists, but additionally battle followers generally. Professional fist-fights are critical enterprise. Your complete world — to not point out your face, enamel and different necessary bodily options — can change instantly.

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But wrestling? To the fellows who grew up doing it, that is simply enjoyable and video games. So why not bounce in there in opposition to an even bigger, youthful opponent and see the way it goes? As lengthy as you may deal with the potential for some morning-after soreness to go together with a bruised ego, it isn’t a foul technique to make a buck and preserve the aggressive hearth burning.

That’s what Faber advised himself when he initially agreed to wrestle Cayden Henschel, a younger wrestler a lot nearer to his measurement. But when RAF wished Henschel to change to a match in opposition to former PFL champ Lance Palmer, that left Faber went up in opposition to Tsarukyan.

The distinction in weight may need been his first concern, but quickly after he was pressured to ask himself if Tsarukyan’s penchant for brawling earlier than and after competitions would possibly be a problem.

This is, in spite of everything, the identical man who punched Georgio Poullas after time expired of their first match. I’ve also head-butted Dan Hooker at a UFC weigh-in. One of the methods Tsarukyan has made himself such a must-see attraction of late is by making his volatility a kind of advertising and marketing asset. You have to look at him since you by no means know what he’ll do. None of that’s misplaced on Faber.

“I never got the warmest vibe from Arman, to be honest. He doesn’t seem like the nicest guy,” Faber stated. “When I was out there last time, he kind of seemed to me like this rich, indifferent kid. I’m looking forward to maybe having some interactions with him at the press conference and in the build-up, but I’m not the kind of guy that’s going to let people punk me or push me around either. I think people pretty much know me, and know I’m a respectful guy, so I’m hoping there’s not an after-the-bell fight or anything. But I’ll probably bring my mouthpiece just in “case.”

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For Faber, the main appeal of these RAF events is the chance to keep testing himself even as his own athletic glory days grow smaller in the rearview mirror. He’ll be 47 next month, he said, and he always likes to get in some kind of competition around his birthday, just to see what he’s still got left in the tank.

One of these days, Faber said, he knows he’ll have to stop doing stuff like this. Inevitably, you get too old to wrestle UFC fighters on live TV. It happens to everyone, and once that window closes it usually never opens again. So why not get what fun you can out of it before it’s too late?

“I’m right at the edge of being too old to do this,” Faber said. “But proper now I’m nonetheless simply barely younger sufficient, and I really like these challenges. I nonetheless imagine in myself. My thoughts, my data, it is higher than it is ever been. But it is like that outdated story of a 90-year-old sensei who’s gained all this information, and if solely he may preserve the physique he had then he’d be the baddest dude on the planet.

“Arman higher come ready. I may need a dad bod — he known as me a sack of potatoes. But the thoughts, you have to be careful for the thoughts.”