Urijah Faber Suffers a Stunning Loss at WEC 36

The WEC hype train, which was hurtling down the tracks with breakneck speed over the past few months, was significantly slowed on Wednesday night.

WEC 36 has now come and gone. The WEC, which has built its reputation on stacked cards, exciting matches and unbelievably talented fighters, was sent reeling after subpar performances from two of its superstars.

As an aside- Jens "L'il Evil" Pulver was absolutely destroyed by Leonard Garcia. Pulver lasted just over a minute and was completely smashed by Garcia. Now, the outcome of this match isn't really a big deal for the promotion - Pulver is a popular fighter but Garcia elevated his standing greatly following the fight. However, it was the fights involving Paulo Filho and Urijah Faber that will have the promotion doing some damage control tonight.

Paulo Filho needs no introduction. He is the WEC Middleweight champion and considered by most to be the #2 Middleweight fighter in the world behind Anderson "The Spider" Silva. To many, a Silva/Filho fight would be their dream match-up.

Anyways, Filho was set to defend his Middleweight title against Chael Sonnen in a much-hyped match-up. The two had a great fight at WEC 31, with Filho eventually winning via submission in a controversial finish.

Filho has been battling a number of problems as of late, and was forced to check himself into a substance abuse rehab facility. He agreed to fight Sonnen at WEC 36, but eventually missed weight by a full seven pounds. The two fighters ultimately agreed to a non-title match-up.

Filho turned in an incredibly subpar performance last night and ended up getting dominated via unanimous decision. This was the first loss of his career, and a huge black stain on his record. Filho was completely out of it during the match (especially near the end), looking lost and disoriented. He was mumbling to himself and looking out into the crowd DURING the fight. He was in terrible shape and obviously didn't prepare himself for the fight.

Paulo Filho will need to take some more time away from fighting to seriously work on his issues. It's just too bad that he (or his trainers or his friends) didn't pull himself off of this event beforehand so that he didn't have to embarrass himself in front of a national audience.

Next up - Urijah Faber. When you think of the WEC, what comes to mind first? Likely "The California Kid."

Well, Faber was rocked on Wednesday night, dropping his Featherweight title to Mike Thomas Brown at just 2:23 of the first round. Faber was a huge favorite to win this fight, but ended up receiving a stunning beat-down. Faber barely got any offense in before Brown overwhelmed him, eventually finishing Faber off with a great left and then a right uppercut. The referee stopped the fight a short time later, giving Brown the Featherweight title.

Many people had Faber as fourth or fifth on their top 10 Pound for Pound fighter list. This was a stunning loss, and it will be interesting to see how Faber (and the WEC) recovers from it. Faber won the title way back in March of 2006 and successfully defended the title numerous times. He was the face of WEC, leading the promotion out of obscurity and into the national spotlight.

There will undoubtedly be a rematch between Brown and Faber - I would imagine that the WEC will want to give Faber every opportunity to win the title back.

The question is - can Faber recover from this crushing loss like a true champion? We'll soon find out.

An interesting night of fights at WEC 36 that will force many to adjust their top 10 P4P fighter lists.