Urijah Faber just faced one of his old rivals, Francisco Rivera, in a Combat Jiu-Jitsu match as the main event of A1 Combat 33 on January 30th, 2026. Their first meeting took place over a decade ago at UFC 181, and Faber got the finish by locking up a bulldog choke in the second round. There was a little bit of controversy surrounding the win though, as Faber accidentally poked Rivera in the eye during the fight. That meant that this was a bit of a grudge match, as Rivera was looking for revenge and Faber was looking to solidify his victory.
Both men started out happy to wrestle but Faber got the upper hand early on by pulling Rivera into a front-headlock and snapping him down to the ground. Rivera stood back up and Faber pressured him against the cage, before surprising everyone by dropping down into deep half-guard. He turned under Rivera and started to expose his back but Rivera defended well and managed to recover. Faber caught the front-headlock again though and this time he spun round pretty quickly to get back to attacking Rivera’s back. Rivera defended well and found his way back to closed guard this time, using it to stand back up.
Faber chased Rivera and pressured him against the cage once again, hitting a quick takedown and then sinking both of his hooks in when Rivera tried to stand back up by turning to turtle. Faber broke him down to a hip and immediately started working for the choke, locking up a modified version of the short choke with his forearm across the front of Rivera’s neck. Rivera was forced to tap after less than four minutes of action in total; with Faber maintaining his great record for the promotion after he also submitted Jeff Glover with a choke back in 2024.
Urijah Faber shared the footage of him submitting Francisco Rivera at A1 Combat 33 in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
