Filming for The Ultimate Fighter Season 22 is already underway and according to one of the season coaches Urijah Faber, there’s already been a physical confrontation with his opposite number, Conor McGregor.
Unlike a similar altercation backstage at the UFC 189 weigh-ins recently, this time the incident happened off-camera, but according to ‘The California Kid’ it pretty much went down the same way as the last time.
“We were giving each other crap and the next thing you know we’re testing each other a little bit,” Faber told mixedmartialarts.com. “Then we’re like manhandling each other. It always ends with him getting pissed off.
“He likes them until the end, when he’s getting manhandled. Then he doesn’t like it. The last one was kind of funny. His (coach) Tom had to come in and be like, ‘alright guys, let’s break it up.’ I feel like it was all in good fun for the most part. We both like to fight. That’s what we do.”
The first time they engaged in an impromptu scuffle Faber wrote on Twitter afterwards that strength wise McGregor felt like “a junior high girl”, but this time around he wasn’t quite as harsh.
“When he was cutting weight, he felt horrible. [This time] he felt okay, when we’ve had interactions. I think he’s definitely best at a distance with his structure. We saw that with Chad. He’s a tough guy.”
Faber is convinced that Chad Mendes will get a rematch and he’s convinced that with a full training camp under his belt that his team-mate would end up getting his hand raised. At the same time, while Faber isn’t going to be fighting McGregor at the end of TUF 22 despite being opposing coaches, he’s also convinced that he’ll get a chance to fight the Irishman at some stage in the future too.
Interestingly, despite there appearing to be bad blood between them, Faber admits that in general he doesn’t actually mind McGregor for the most part.
“I like him alright. There’s things about everyone that gets on people’s nerves, but he seems like a decent guy. I really like his mentality. I think the only reason he’s where he is, is because of his mentality. It’s the same with guys like me, Chad Mendes, Jose Aldo and T.J. Dillashaw, he has that championship mentality and I can appreciate that.”
Watch the full interview with Faber at an airport in Las Vegas below.
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