Red Ink: Faber/Brown II

Last November, then-WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber bounced into his first fight with Mike Thomas Brown slapping hands, singing and looking very relaxed -- relaxed enough to be a guy on his way to dinner.

Turns out he was on his way to the dentist. After a miscalculated spinning elbow -- an absence of mind the phrase “WTF?” was invented for -- Brown capitalized and put Faber down for the count. Now the press has cast Brown as the bigger, bullying brother, with more raw power than Faber will be able to handle.

It makes for incendiary copy, but the reality is, the first fight didn’t last long enough to know for sure. No one had the advantage, and while Brown was able to make a show of pushing Faber on his ass from the clinch, he didn’t rack up any damage points until Faber’s mistake. Expect Faber to cut the crap this time around. Anything less than perfect, and he loses.

What It Means: The future of Faber in the WEC. If he can’t get past Brown, it’s not the smartest business to have him hanging around and picking off contenders. It could be time for either a move down (to 135 pounds and a run at Miguel Torres) or a move up to the 155-pound class.

Third-Party Investor: The Versus network, which counts on Faber’s marketability to propel the WEC’s engine. (“Win a Chance to Train with Mike Brown” sounds more like a threat than a prize.)

Who Wins: Faber. No theatrics, and a strong possibility of catching Brown on the ground if it winds up there: All four of Brown’s losses came via submission.