On January 10, Raphael Assunção (14-1) will face fellow featherweight Urijah Faber at WEC 46 in Sacramento, Cali. in the co-main event of that event.

Assunção has put together a six fight win streak since April of 2007 and talked to Tatame.com recently about his upcoming match with Faber.

Tatame: You’ll fight with Faber, a former champion of the category, who was considered one of the best pound for pound of the world. What’s the expectation for the combat?
Raphael Assunção: The expectation is always positive, he’s good in everything, with a good arsenal, but I’ll press a good rhythm of threats attacks, with a lot of gas, and we’ll see how the fight will flow. I’ll go for it on my next fight… My next fight will be explosive, and I expect to represent Brazil and my family of the best way with my skills.

Tatame: Do you think that he will be your tough opponent until now?
Raphael Assunção: Maybe he’s the toughest opponent that I ever faced until then… He has a good game, but I think that I fought athletes stronger than him, with a jiu-jitsu better than his… I fought with athletes with better muay thai and boxing than his, but what makes him dangerous is how he conquest his techniques. The strategy will be to explore his mistakes and openings.

Tatame: What are your plans for the future? Do you think about going to the lightweight division in the UFC?
Raphael Assunção: Go to 155 pounds on UFC is definitely not in my plans, because of my body and my physical structure. Usually, my weight is 158 pounds. I already fought with 155 at the beginning of my career, because we rarely had fights at until 145 pounds at the time, and when we had, the purse was very low. This fights were against very good athletes, tough and strong, bigger than me, but thanks God I could win these battles.

Read the rest of the interview by visiting Tatame.com.

The interview was translated from Portuguese by Tatame.

The current rumored WEC 46 event card appears as follows:

- Jamie Varner vs. Ben Henderson for WEC lightweight championship
- Urijah Faber vs. Raphael Assuncao
- Mackens Semerzier vs. Deividas Taurosevičius
- Charlie Valencia vs. Akitoshi Tamura