X-Rays of Urijah Faber’s Broken Hand Suffered in WEC 41 Loss to Mike Brown
Posted by Kris Karkoski on Jun 8, 2009 at 9:28 am ET34 Comments
On Sunday at WEC 41, former featherweight title-holder Urijah Faber suffered a unanimous decision loss to 145-pound champion Mike Brown after breaking one hand and injuring the other in the opening round of the bout, forcing him to use elbows and submissions in an unsuccessful attempt to finish Brown.
Less than 12 hours after the loss, Faber (via Twitter) has released x-rays of his injuries:
Tags: Urijah Faber
Loading ...
someone is going to get a nice vacation!
i think he would have won if not for his hands they will def square off again.
Great effort by Uriah to go 5 rounds with those injuries!
I don’t think anyone gives Brown credit for TAKING a punch that broke Fabers hand!!! It didn’t even back him up.
That’s because it was a strike to the top of Brown’s head, plus the impact of the shot was probably absorbed by Faber’s breaking bones.
One hell of a show of heart.
Nasty breaks, for sure. I definitely think those injuries played a role in the outcome of the fight. It was a close fight and hard to call as it was, if Urijah had been able to throw right punches he would have done more damage and landed more strikes than he did. He also would have been better able to lock up the late choke attempts.
Urijah is a true champ. I know he would of won last night if not for the injures he suffered in the first round. My respects to THE CALIFORNIA KID!! You are the man!!
anyone see exactly how this happened? im guessing some GNP and hit the matt accidentally?
it probably happened when faber caught brown right above browns forehead. I think after that shot he stopped throwing his right.
THat’s a bad break dude. He’s going to be out for a while. But like everyone said, the fight would have been hella different if he hadn’t broken his hand. Great effort by both fighters.
yeah he caught the to of his head really hard
One of the tweets where Urijah posted the pics said “Surgery.” then had the middle picture.
Urijah has two breaks in that hand. Ouch!
Gotta agree with Justin and Jazzkok. I was going for Brown, but if Faber didn’t get hurt im not sure how it would of went. Faber had the upperhand on some of those strikes, but Brown did counter alot.
lets not take away anything from mike brown he got clocked wit a couple elbows that i thought were gonna flat line him. dudes tough and he deserved that win. even my mom who has the biggest crush on urijah said brown took that fight. we can play couldves and shouldves and wouldves all day but end of the day u gotta give it up to brown. as for the break in his hand that **** is nasty and it sux cuz hes probably done for for 09.
nah man he shouldn’t b out seariously anymore than 2-3 months.
Ouch!
Faber played very good. But that dude brown won via manhandle. He threw Faber on the mat, on the air, against the cage……what not. At some point faber had guilletin, brown just took him on the air and threw faber upside down. I was like WOW. Brown is too strong for anyone in this weight class. Even though I rooted for brown but didnt expect he is that good.
I’m a longtime Faber fan, even when more casual MMA fans were like, “Faber who?!”.
Gutting out a tough 5 rounder essentailly without hands is a pretty strong indicator that Faber will be back in 2010 to mix it up with Aldo and or Brown for the FW belt.
Just sounding this out there. One of the guys at the bar watching the fight said afterwards that he thought Faber should use his recovery time to drop down to BW/135 to avoid getting manhandled in the future by Brown’s obviously-superior physical strength.
Any thoughts one way or another? IMO a Faber/Torres bantanweight championship fight would be an awesome thing to see…
Faber has said that he is well capable of making the cut to 135 (that’s where he used to wrestle), and I do agree him versus Torres would be a great fight. It’s hard to say what he will do. It can easily be argued that without the hand injuries he could have won that fight, it was close as it did play out. So he might think that if he can come back and get another crack and not break his hand(s) that he could come out on the winning side, and therefore not see the need to drop down.
Why drop down to 135? Just because there is a guy who has beat him twice doesn’t mean he should chicken out and run to the 135 class. Faber is tough dude who will be back just as strong as before.
That’s some crazy heart shown by Faber right there.. how many other fighters have we seen who bail at the slightest injury like that? I think that without the injuries he would’ve beaten Brown, guess we’ll have to wait until Faber v Brown III to find out.
faber broke his hand in the first round and injured his left hand. yet he still went the distance. if his hands werent busted that fight would have ended alot sooner.
What a great show of heart!!!
Dude is a true champ!!
And Brown is the man right now he is the real deal…
Hey I don’t care what anyone says urijahs the man
Just a fly on the wall here, a former boxer myself, Had a few breaks in my hands one witch ended me 12 yr.ago. My question is can this kid come back with an injury like this!
Will it snap his first fight back?
Will he favor the hand because he know what could happen again?
Has anyone seen a break like this one before and cares to comment, (trainers, fighters, dockers) we wont hold you to your comment!
Tjack, Idk, I’m no competitive MMA guy, but I’m pretty sure a hand that’s busted up as good as Faber’s isn’t ready for competition in anywhere close to the 2-3 months you suggest.
I’d say some time in mid-2010 is more like it, and I had the same reaction as Flyonthewall – namely, will he be able to come back at all? Those are some serious breaks to some pretty delicate bones that are likely to absorb tons of impact in future fights.
Hope that’s not the case, but i think it’s a possibility.
I showed the online x-rays to a doctor friend of mine, and even though his opinion is semi-informed at best without seeing the patient [Faber] he estimated recovery time at 10-12 months, with a moderate to high level of “down the road” re-breakage given Faber’s occupation and reported current fighting style.
Not real good news for Faber, his fans, or the sport in general…
From Urijah’s twitter: “Two steel plates and a bunch of screws. Checking left hand again now. The 4th and 5 metacarpal. Busted! All good! http://twitpic.com/72agf“
The gloves are designed to protect hands. Faber has the money to design gloves that will do what they are supposed to do.
First off um he broke his hand in a fight, and well the gloves that ALL of the fighters wear aren’t designed by the fighters themselves…
I also don’t know if you have any idea of how much $ actually goes into the R&D of any “new” product, soo to assume that one has “enough” money to do so is quite a assumption…
I have to r00r zummo that bong in your pic is for pansys
Only a professional athlete would use a bong designed for children.
To think he would have thrown Uriah Around as much as he did if he was able to use both his hand properly is fantasy. Not taking anything away from Brown.. he is a frickin’ beast.
Man i can tell all of u this. I have jijitsu belts and tae kwon do belts. And to break ur hands in the first roun on a top of the head shot and continue is awesome. But as a champ BROWN should of been able to finish a non lethal fighter. I mean he just basically killed time knowing he was fairly safe from the ability of finishes from faber. U CANT lock up a choke with broken hands u have no leverage. U cant defend a take down or take someone down with broken hands. IT was over when faber borke his hands and brown didnt capitolize.
Everyone thinks Faber was getting man handled, but that’s not the case. Brown is very powerful, but Faber’s take down ability and take down defense were greatly diminished by the injuries to his hand. It’s very difficult to grapple when you cannot grip your opponent. I know other fighters had similar injuries and prevailed in the past (i.e. Rich Franklin) but I don’t think any of them were fighting for a world title with the top guy in their weight class.