Originally Posted by MMAJunkie

Pulver aims for October return, fight with Nogueira


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Jens Pulver can sum up his performance against Urijah Faber last month in a single word – slow.

The former UFC lightweight champion was beaten for the first time at 145 pounds., when Faber scored a unanimous decision in Sacramento June 1 in World Extreme Cagefighting's biggest event to date.

"I spent so much time working on getting well-rounded, I never sharpened anything," said Pulver (22-9-1). "It's still a work in progress for me. He's fast, and he's a great champion and a great fighter. People got on me because it seemed like I never tried to hurt him. I thought I hurt him, but then he'd come back firing, so I didn't know if I had him hurt. After the second round, I was a little loopy."

Faber had Pulver in some trouble in that second round, connecting first with a short left to the head and following up with a barrage of shots to the back of the neck, but Pulver's trademark toughness pulled him through the onslaught. Pulver come out of the fight with some damage to his right eye, but an elbow injury proved to be more severe.

"The eye was big, but I went to the hospital that night to get the 180-day (medical suspension) lifted and had an MRI that showed nothing was broken; it was just a lot of swelling," Pulver said. "But, I cracked my elbow in the second round."

Pulver had surgery two weeks ago to repair the elbow, which will relegate his training primarily to cardio until mid-July. Despite the setback of both the loss and injury, Pulver refuses to dwell on what might have been.

"I can't be discouraged," he said. "The truth is I gave it 110 percent. I got beat. He was bigger, he was faster, but I think I showed a lot of people a lot of things in the aspect of my heart and my desire to keep fighting. I wasn't owned in any kind of submission. I wasn't wrecked in takedowns. I was stopping takedowns. I showed a lot of people that I can compete against the best guys out there. I know there are little things I need to work on, but I left everything out there."

Pulver says he will be ready to fight again in October, and while he's quick with the obligatory "I'll fight anybody they put in front of me," he has an opponent in mind. He believes a match-up against Alexandre Franca Nogueira makes sense for both fighters.

"He's been in a lot of wars and has been around for a long time," Pulver said. "He's still a top fighter, and with both of us coming off losses, it's a perfect fight for one of us to get right back up there in the division and one of us becomes a journeyman."

Nogueira (13-5-2), a Shooto veteran, made his WEC debut on the June 1 card. Brazil's Jose Aldo stopped him by TKO in the second round.