Urijah Faber reveals Dana White lied to him over who he was facing at UFC 148 and led him to believe it was Ivan Menjivar
UFC bantamweight number one contender, Urijah Faber has today revealed that Dana White basically lied to him about who he was facing at UFC 148 a couple of days prior to the fight announcement this past Friday night, leading him to believe he was facing Canadian veteran, Ivan Menjivar and not Renan Barao.
Speaking via Pro MMA Radio, Faber said:
“I had first assumed it was going to be Barao, or McDonald or Menjivar and Barao was my first prediction. I started getting tape on him as soon as I found out about Dominick. This was a couple of weeks ago. Then, when Dana came in to do the announcement, I asked him if there were any hints or insights on who it would be and he was saying ‘Oh, you wouldn’t believe what all had gone down, how McDonald broke his hand and Barao didn’t want to leave Brazil, to leave Aldo’s side, because Aldo was training’ and all this crazy stuff, so I didn’t know for awhile. Then like two days before the thing, I had text Dana and he was basically lying to me, saying it was gonna be Menjivar. For like two days I thought I might be fighting Menjivar. Then the day of the announcement, I was like ‘Are you sure it’s not Barao?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah.’ But I had a feeling that it was. Then Dana apologized right before he announced it, for basically lying, which is kinda weird, I thought, because Barao was there. I don’t care who I fight, I told Dana I wouldn’t say anything anyway, if he was thinking I might spoil the surprise, or what the deal was.”
Faber is coming off an impressive second round submission win over former WEC champion, Brian Bowles last time out. This enabled him to bounce back from the close decision loss to Cruz last summer which went the distance over 25 minutes. Stay tuned to MMABay for more build-up to this one as we get it.
By Michael Pepper. (Follow me on Twitter)
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