Brad Pickett sees a few ways to spoil Urijah Faber's goodbye: 'I just need to land one of my shots'

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Brad Pickett walks into the octagon on Saturday with the inglorious task of putting a sour end to Urijah Faber’s MMA career.

Not only that, Pickett (25-12 MMA, 5-7 UFC) gets to attempt that in front of Faber’s (33-10 MMA, 9-6 UFC) hometown of Sacramento, Calif., where the “California Kid” is nothing short of a celebrity. Spoiling the party will probably not get him many popularity points with the local crowd, but it’s still the task at hand.

And promising the “typical” aggressive, finish-driven Pickett, the English fighter sees a few ways in which he can make it happen.

“He’s a tough opponent,” Pickett told MMAjunkie. “But people know me, and know I throw hard. Everyone knows how crazy this sport is. I just need to land one of my shots, and then he’s going to go to sleep. I’ll guarantee that. As for me now, I need to focus on landing some of my shots.

“Don’t get me wrong. Don’t sleep on my ground game. I do have really good submissions as well. I just don’t have the opportunity to show it too much. Some of my best submissions I never hit in a fight. I hit everyone in the gym, never hit in one fight. So people still don’t know about them yet.”

The bantamweights square off on the FOX-televised main card of UFC on FOX 22, which takes place Saturday at Golden 1 Center. Prelims air on FS1 and stream on UFC Fight Pass.

A former WEC champion and multiple-time UFC title challenger who’s also ranked No. 10 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA bantamweight rankings, Faber has been saying from the start that Saturday’s scrap will be his last.

The reasons, he told MMAjunkie, have a lot less to do with his physical state than with the emotional drive. Pickett can understand why Faber – “a true pioneer for the lower weight classes – would have lost “a little bit of the hunger,” and he respects his opponent’s personal decision to call it quits.

But he also believes the buzz around Faber’s retirement might end up working to his own advantage.

“All the eyes are on him; all the pressure on him,” Pickett said. “He’s in his hometown. I’ve been there before. He’s in his hometown. His phone is blowing up every two minutes.

“It’s just me, flying in from another country, no eyes on me, hardly any interviews. It’s all about me. He’s retiring. Throughout my camp, I was just having to concentrate on my camp, concentrate on getting better and preparing for him. Where he’s preparing for his retirement, preparing for this business, that business. He’s got a lot of focus on a lot of different areas while my focus has solely been on him.”

On his end, Pickett has also publicly flirted with the idea of calling it quits. Although the idea was put on hold with a win over Francisco Rivera that snapped a three-fight skid, Pickett is now back in the losing column after a bitter first-round submission setback to Iuri Alcantara. He’s now contemplating saying his own goodbyes.

“I’d kind of like to do what (Faber) has done – where he’s retiring in his hometown,” Pickett said. “I would like to do that, get a good sending off. And I do know the UFC is going back to London in March, so that could be a possibility. I need to speak to people.

“But I don’t like to plan too much when I have such a big thing in front of me, as this Saturday, so I need to focus on that. And yeah, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things.”

For more on Pickett’s thoughts on Faber, getting over his most recent setback and retirement, check out the video above.

And for more on UFC on FOX 22, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.