UFC Champs VS WEC Champs Could Be On The Horizon
I am a huge UFC and WEC fan this news is music to my ears. For more than a year, Zuffa officials have been adamant with decries that the Ultimate Fighting Championship and its sister promotion, World Extreme Cagefighting, will operate as independent organizations.
But for the first time, a company executive has suggested the WEC may get a promotional push by the UFC, and it could result in superfights between the two organizations' biggest stars.
Today during a UFC Fan Expo London 2010 Q&A session at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London, UFC co-owner and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta admitted the time likely has come for the UFC to help its smaller partner. After all, while the WEC has produced some of the best and most competitive events of the past few years, ratings have sunk, attendance figures have flat-lined (when WEC star Urijah Faber isn't on the card), and yet the company continues producing some of the sport's top lighter-weight fighters, including featherweight champ Aldo, lightweight title-holder Henderson, and a host of other notables in the 135-, 145- and 155-pound divisions.
"We try to promote the best that we can, and now we're trying to integrate and the help the WEC by using the UFC to promote that," said Fertitta, who's blueprinted the UFC's expansion into 500 million homes across the planet. "In my opinion, the lighter weight guys are the most exciting. They never rest; they just keep going and going. They fight really hard."
Ever since the UFC purchased the WEC in late 2006, the organizations have operated from the same offices in Las Vegas. But behind the scenes is one thing, and in the cage, just about everything else has been different, including broadcast partners, frequency of events, fighter pay/bonuses, and even the size of the cage.
Over the past couple years, MMAjunkie.com frequently has asked both UFC president Dana White and WEC general Reed Harris if we could ever see UFC vs. WEC fights – or even a WEC "showcase" fight or two on a major UFC broadcast. The general consensus was that the organizations need to maintain their independence and individual identities, and each WEC champion already has worthy competitors in his respective weight class.
But Fertitta admits that it may be time for some of the WEC's stars to test their chops against the UFC's elite.
"We'd love to see kind of a 'champion vs. champion' type bout with Ben and Frankie Edgar or something like that," he said. "Ben Henderson is a great fighter, and I think he could do really, really well against some of the top guys in the UFC at 155 (pounds)."
Henderson, of course, first must get by Anthony Pettis, another fast-rising and marketable lightweight, at WEC 52 in December. But if Henderson proves victorious, he could find himself with few other worthy contenders.
Of course, Fertitta's comments come a day after a Q&A session with White, who – while discussing Aldo, a winner of eight straight fights in the WEC – admitted the champ was looking to the UFC for future challenges. As Henderson may find, Aldo has limited options in his own promotion.
And unlike in the past, White apparently has warmed up to the possibility of those challengers coming from the UFC.
"There's some interesting fights with those guys (in the WEC), so we're working on putting those fights together," White said. "We're working on a lot of things right now that we'll be announcing in the next couple of months."
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