“I was trying to get to the bottom of what she was really after,” said Faber (33-10 MMA, 9-6 UFC), whose retirement fight comes Saturday against Brad Pickett (25-12 MMA, 5-7 UFC) at UFC on FOX 22 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. “Like, you want to get into acting? I was trying to gauge it. And she’s just like, ‘I want to be a world champion.’”
So at least her head was in the right place. But Faber’s buy-in wasn’t all there until one particular day of sparring at then gym.
“She got into a heated fistfight with a kid that we had on the team,” he said. “He was a little Brazilian kid; he was just right about to be 13 or 14, and he was a stud kickboxer. And those two went at it, like a war. He pissed her off, and she pissed him off, and next thing I know, she’s dropping knees on his head, and we had to break it up.
“I’m like, alright, this girl’s here to play.”