Sherdog’s Top 10: Most Influential Fighters

---

8. Urijah Faber

The only active fighter on this list, “The California Kid” will likely continue to rise up the ranks as he edges closer to retirement. There are three major reasons why Faber deserves to be counted among these all-time greats. First, he was one of the first lighter-weight fighters to achieve stardom; second, he contributed heavily to technical developments in the melding of striking, wrestling and grappling; and third, he founded Team Alpha Male.

Before Faber burst onto the scene as the World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion, lighter-weight fighters had zero public profile, especially in the United States. Neither Pride nor the UFC had ever featured small competitors, and the organizations that did so -- King of the Cage, for example -- were hardly in a position to put any real push behind featherweights or bantamweights. Faber’s five-fight run as WEC champion changed that. His exciting style and tendency to produce highlight-reel finishes made him must-see TV and changed the way fans viewed smaller competitors.

Faber’s style is another essential component of the influence he has had over the sport. Wrestle-grapplers were nothing new, of course, but the ease with which Faber transitioned from striking to wrestling to grappling was breathtaking in its fluidity. Overhand right to double-leg was Faber’s bread and butter, and when he went to work on the ground, he seamlessly integrated a vice-like guillotine with the wrestler’s front headlock. His ability to latch onto a submission, especially that guillotine or a rear-naked choke, as his opponent tried to get back to his feet has since become the go-to sequence within the sport as a whole.

It is not just that Faber exemplified these developments but that he has since taught them to a large group of willing pupils. Even if Faber were to retire before fighting Frankie Edgar in May, Team Alpha Male would stand as a worthy accomplishment on its own. It is the premier camp in the sport for lighter-weight fighters, with a distinct style emerging under Faber’s guidance over the years, and “The California Kid” has brought in coaches like Duane Ludwig -- not without tension, naturally -- and Martin Kampmann to further hone his fighters’ skills. Whether he has been instructing them directly or not, Faber built the structures that allowed talents like Joseph Benavidez, Chad Mendes and T.J. Dillashaw to thrive. That, by itself, would be a worthy legacy.

Number 7 » He wrestled throughout his youth and briefly in junior college before dropping out. He also had a background in karate and took up boxing, along with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. These bases -- boxing, jiu-jitsu and wrestling -- formed the pillars of his diverse and highly competent game, and he imbued those skills with a serious measure of hardheaded toughness and athleticism.