{"id":445480,"date":"2026-01-31T16:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T16:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/445480\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T16:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T16:30:08","slug":"urijah-faber-chokes-out-former-ufc-rival-francisco-rivera-jr-in-long-awaited-rematch-a1-combat-33-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/445480\/","title":{"rendered":"Urijah Faber Chokes Out Former UFC Rival Francisco Rivera Jr. In Long-Awaited Rematch \u2013 A1 Combat 33 Highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Urijah Faber\u2019s return to the cage was a smashing success. <\/p>\n

After closing out his mixed martial arts career in 2019, \u2018The California Kid\u2019 has made sporadic appearances competing in BJJ matches. On Friday, Faber headlined his A1 Combat 33<\/a> event in Sacramento, squaring off with old UFC rival Francisco Rivera Jr. in a Combat Jiu-Jitsu exhibition. <\/p>\n

Though their match consisted of one 10-minute round, Faber needed less than half that, submitting Rivera Jr. with a rear-naked choke<\/a> he has since dubbed the \u201cNo Country for Old Men,\u201d a reference to the 2007 film starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Official Result: Urijah Faber def. Francisco Rivera Jr.<\/a> via submission (rear-naked choke) at 3:42. <\/p>\n

The bout represented a rematch more than a decade in the making after Faber secured a submission victory over Rivera Jr. at UFC 181 in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cI poked him and choked him back in the day,\u201d Faber said on the JAXXON podcast before running it back with his old Octagon<\/a> foe. \u201cHe\u2019s always been salty about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Faber is scheduled to return to the mat on February 28 for a wrestling match against former champ-champ Henry Cejudo<\/a> at RAF 6 in Tempe, Arizona. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Check out Highlights From Urijah Faber vs. Francisco Rivera Jr. at A1 Combat 33:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Urijah Faber\u2019s return to the cage was a smashing success. After closing out his mixed martial arts career…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-445480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}