First and Worst: Week of September 9 – September 15, 2013

By Adam Martin

First and Worst is an ongoing series for MMARatings.net, where every week Adam will make his pick for the best and worst newly-announced fight of the past week (Monday to Sunday). If you’d like to see any additions to this series, hit him up on Twitter @MMAdamMartin.

First: Urijah Faber vs. Michael McDonald, UFC on FOX 9

My pick for the best fight announced this past week is the upcoming bantamweight bout at UFC on FOX 9 between Urijah Faber and Michael McDonald, a barnburner of a fight on paper that could be a “Fight of the Year” candidate when it’s all said and done.

With Faber, we have one of the best fighters south of 155 pounds, and one of the few draws in the lower weight divisions. He has been on a roll so far in 2013, with submission wins over Ivan Menjivar and Scott Jorgensen, and a decision defeat over the surging Yuri Alcantara in his last appearance inside the Octagon. Although Faber has had plenty of chances to fight for the belt and has always come up short, it’s going to be hard for the UFC to deny him another crack at it if he can take out McDonald this winter in his hometown of Sacramento, California, because it’s certainly a tall task.

McDonald is one of the youngest and most exciting fighters in the UFC, and in his last outing he took out Brad Pickett with a second-round submission in one of the best fights of the year so far, bouncing back from being submitted by Renan Barao at UFC on FUEL TV 7.

Going up against a guy like Faber, I just don’t see how this fight could be boring, and that’s why I honestly can’t wait for December to roll around. I really feel like Faber vs. McDonald is going to be one of the all-time great bantamweight battles when it’s all said and done.

UFC on Fox 9

• Urijah Faber vs. Michael McDonald

Click the stars to rate your anticipation for this fight.

Worst: Thiago Tavares vs. Quinn Mulhern, UFC Fight Night 32

My pick for the worst fight announced this past week is the upcoming lightweight matchup between Thiago Tavares and Quinn Mulhern, which will take place on the prelims of the UFC Fight Night 32 card this November.

Typically I’m a guy who enjoys the fights from the first Facebook prelim all the way to the main event of the evening, but I’m not going to lie, this fight doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Here’s why:

Tavares has been in the UFC for quite a long time and has delivered some fun fights for the fans over the years, but the last time we saw him in action was earlier this year when Khabib Nurmagomedov destroyed him with elbows at UFC on FX 7. It was such a vicious stoppage that I actually kind of felt bad for the guy, because referee Dan Miragliotta just stood there and watched while Nurmagomedov carved out his face like a pumpkin with his elbows. However, I completely changed my feelings about that once I found out he popped positive for a PED after the fight and was suspended for the last nine months.

So one half of this matchup is a guy coming off not only a KO loss, but a drug suspension as well, and the other half of this matchup, Mulhern, was also knocked out in brutal fashion, by Rick Story at UFC 158 in his first and thus far only appearance in the Octagon.

So basically it’s a fight between two guys that got KO’d in their last fights, and one of them is a known cheat. No wonder I don’t care, and I bet many of you reading this feel the same.