FanHouse Urijah Faber

Jens Pulver is planning to bring a little evil back to the WEC cage one more time.

The former UFC lightweight champion and MMA legend, who has not been heard from since losing to Josh Grispi in June and was assumed to be finished as an active fighter, plans to return to featherweight action in early 2010, he told FanHouse.

"I'm going to fight again," he said. "And I'm about as confident as I possibly can be."

Right now in Mosul, Iraq, there are soldiers preparing for a different kind of fight. Not the kind with guns and bombs and IEDs. But mixed martial arts.

It's no secret that MMA is wildly popular among the U.S. military, who are taught hand-to-hand combat and share a kinship with the fighters. Many MMA fighters, including BJ Penn, Urijah Faber and Kenny Florian have traveled to the Middle East to visit troops. Others, like Randy Couture, Tim Kennedy and Brian Stann served in the military. And the UFC has even put on shows at U.S. bases to benefit veterans' causes.

But this one is different.

All around the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas during UFC 100 weekend, MMA fighters could be seen signing autographs for adoring throngs of fans. It all seemed pretty routine: smile, shake, sign, pose. But one thing was different about the Silver Star booth. The athlete putting his pen to paper there was doing so despite having casts on both of his hands.

Urijah Faber, the former WEC featherweight champion, badly injured both of his hands during his July unanimous decision loss to Mike Brown. He dislocated his left thumb and suffered two broken bones on his right hand. The latter injury required steel plates to hasten recovery.

Faber says now that he has "no idea" when he'll be able to return to the cage, and that "it's going to be some months." In fact, it's quite likely that we won't see him back in the cage until 2010.