UFC 245’s already hugely star-studded fight card is getting yet another meaningful match-up as Urijah Faber has been lined up to fight Petr Yan at the December 14th show in Las Vegas.
Faber came out of a two-and-a-half year retirement at the age of 40 back in July and immediately looked like his old self as he handed Ricky Simon only the second loss of his career by TKO in just 46 seconds.
Even before his retirement Faber had actually been coming off a win over Brad Pickett, but before that he’d lost three of his last four fights, coming up on the wrong end of the decision against Frankie Edgar, Dominick Cruz and Jimmie Rivera, with a solitary win over Frankie Saenz sandwiched inbetween.
Faber clearly feels he’s back on track at the moment though and he’ll have to be to get anything from Yan, who is currently one of the division’s most in-form fighters, having so far won all five of his UFC fights to date.
Along the way the 26-year-old has defeated the likes of Douglas Silva de Andrade, John Dodson and Jimmie Rivera to climb to No.4 in the rankings, and a high-profile win over Faber could be just what he needs to stake his claim for a title shot.
with Faber vs. Yan on-board, UFC 245’s stacked line-up now includes three title fights: Kamaru Usman vs. Colby Covington at welterweight, Max Holloway vs. Alexander Volkanovski at featherweight and Amanda Nunes vs. Germaine de Randamie at bantamweight, not to mention Jose Aldo’s bantamweight debut against Marlon Moraes and Matt Brown’s first fight in two years against Ben Saunders.