Heading into the final week of its existence, the WEC has planned several events to promote its final card to be held at the Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Arizona. In addition, Versus will once again have pre- and post-fight shows.
Most of the pre-fight promotion has centered around Benson Henderson. Henderson, the WEC Lightweight Champion, is set to fight Anthony “Showtime” Pettis in his adopted hometown of Glendale, Arizona. According to the WEC teleconference last week, a rally will be held in Glendale Tuesday to honor Henderson. The NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes honored Henderson last week with an honorary jersey. Last month, he dropped the puck at a Coyotes game. In addition, open media workouts featuring Henderson, Pettis and the Bantamweight main eventers Scott Jorgenson and Dominick Cruz will take place at Henderson’s gym, the MMA Lab. Capitalizing on the exposure, Henderson’s gym is currently having an online twitter contest in which it is giving away Henderson merchandise.
Payout Perspective:
It is interesting to note that most of the events promoting the fight involve Henderson. Overshadowed by the fact that it is the WEC’s last show, the fans picked Glendale as the site for this event as part of the Hometown Takedown contest. Since Henderson lives and trains in Glendale, it makes sense to have him appear as the face of this card. However, it is somewhat odd that Pettis, Jorgenson or Cruz aren’t involve more in promoting the fight. The Henderson-Pettis fight will be important since the winner gets the next title shot at either Maynard or Edgar in the UFC.
The Versus pre and post fight show should include lots of looking back at the WEC while looking ahead to the fighters moving on to the UFC.
On another note, I am surprised that the WEC/UFC have not provided a WEC retrospective leading up to the last WEC event. Perhaps this will happen before the end of the year, but I think it would be nice to have a tribute show to the best fights/fighters of the WEC in a “WEC Wreckage”.
Raise a glass to the most exciting to watch organization in 2010! Hoping the addition of WEC fighters in the UFC brings on better events for them.
The retrospective should just be called “Best of WEC” and should include a few fights from weight classes the WEC no longer has (if they own rights to the footage), like James Irvin vs Doug Marshall, Condit vs Prater, etc.
I am definitely going to miss the WEC. But them folding into the UFC will make room on the near free channels for some one else to fill. Who ever it is I hope they strive to be as exciting as the WEC.
I just hope that the increased cage side won’t effect the excitement of the FW and BW bouts. It’s a lot of ground to cover for those little guys.
*size*
A better point is that it’s a lot more room for them to be “elusive.”
WEC was a fantastic org… hopefully Zuffa uses the new weight classes in an effective way.