Urijah Faber

Urijah Christopher Faber ( yoo-RY-ə FAY-bər; born May 14, 1979) is an American former mixed martial artist and actor. He competed in the bantamweight and featherweight divisions of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), having competed for the UFC Bantamweight Championship on three occasions (once for the interim title), and the featherweight division of the World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), where is a former WEC featherweight champion. He is the founder of Team Alpha Male.

Faber was an NCAA wrestler. With his base in wrestling, he later added Brazilian jiu-jitsu to his arsenal and quickly earned a brown belt under Fábio "Pateta" Prado. Faber won the WEC featherweight championship at WEC 19 on March 17, 2006, and held the title for over two and a half years until losing it to Mike Brown at WEC 36 on November 5, 2008. He went on to challenge for the WEC featherweight championship two more times (against Brown and José Aldo), and after moving to the UFC, went on to challenge for the UFC Bantamweight Championship three times (once against Renan Barão, twice against Dominick Cruz).

Faber is widely regarded as one of MMA's pioneers for establishing legitimacy to lighter-weight classes. After his retirement on July 6, 2017, Faber was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame as a part of the Modern-era wing. He came out of retirement in 2019 and defeated Ricky Simón by first-round TKO.