WEC lightweights add depth to UFC

UFC president Dana White opened Thursday's media call by stating the company was adding bantamweight and featherweight divisions. Only later did WEC, the organization that popularized those weight classes, come up in the conversation. The promotion will be folded into the UFC in 2011.

The end of World Extreme Cagefighting is both sad and inevitable.

The UFC name lends a certain cachet, and the top fighters in the lower-weight divisions were missing out on shows without the UFC brand.

The all-lighter-weight WEC shows were the most consistently exciting all-around MMA events of any promotion. But without the UFC-brand name, the growth of those divisions stalled, and over the last year had even backtracked.

WEC's television peak was on June 1, 2008, when former UFC lightweight champ Jens Pulver dropped down to featherweight to challenge Urijah Faber for his championship. The show, with Faber retaining his title in a five-round decision, drew 1.54 million viewers, about triple what the usual WEC shows had been drawing on Versus. It also was considered by many as the best MMA show of that year.

But those new fans didn't stay. After that show, ratings returned to doing only a fraction of what UFC shows were doing on cable, even though WEC shows generally had more exciting fights with higher skill level. In the last year, there has been a consistent decline, with several recent shows doing barely more than 300,000 viewers. The big numbers were for championship matches involving Faber, the biggest star in the promotion.

The most successful show in non-UFC MMA history – and it needed help from the UFC – was on April 24, when Faber challenged and lost to Jose Aldo Jr. for the featherweight title. The fight was moved to pay-per-view and was estimated as doing between 150,000 and 200,000 buys.

For political reasons regarding prelim fights on Spike, all references to WEC and even the term "WEC" was banned from the broadcast.

The UFC announcing team was used and virtually no visible references to WEC were in the arena. White promoted the show, and while the UFC name wasn't used, the look and feel of a UFC event was beneficial for business. Many complained about this the week of the show, but it was undoubtedly the best thing for business.

The WEC ratings slide reversed course for the Sept. 30 event, headlined by Aldo defending against Manny Gamburyan and a grudge match with "Cowboy" Donald Cerrone and Jamie Varner, which drew 486,000 viewers.

By contrast, the two UFC events on the station this year, without championship matches or even top-five contenders, both headlined by Jon Jones in fights with Brandon Vera and Vladimir Matyushenko, drew 1.24 million and 991,000 viewers.

"Everybody's been talking about it," said White of merging the organizations. "I think everyone wanted this to happen for the last couple of years. It was a timing thing. As we open up these new markets and do more fights, now was the time."

Probably even more significant was the TV contracts. UFC had to be able to maintain its number of fights on Spike, while at the same time having the option of also airing fights on Versus. Once the issues with the same promotion being on two networks were worked out, the move was in the works.

The new deal makes all the sense in the world: Versus gets higher-rated shows, and UFC gets more depth for its events by adding two new championships as well as top-contender matches for those championships.

The top lighter-weight fighters get to appear on bigger shows, including championship matches, regularly on pay-per-view, which means more exposure and more money. The only real downside is the end of the WEC-style shows, which were the most action-packed in the sport.

World Extreme Cagefighting was founded in 2001 by Reed Harris, who is still the public face of the company, and Scott Adams, a former UFC fighter. They ran shows at what is now the Taichi Palace Hotel & Casino in Lemoore, Calif., just outside of Fresno. For several years, they would pack the 2,000-seat tent-like facility at a time when MMA events were a rarity in the state. It wasn't until 2006 that MMA was actually legal in California, but because the hotel was on Native American land, they had an exemption.

Zuffa purchased the company in late 2006, for unique reasons. UFC was at war with a new promotion, the International Fight League. The IFL was in negotiations for regular television on Versus, and to head them off at the pass, Zuffa also was talking with the station. The problem was at the time, UFC had a contract with Spike TV that gave Spike cable exclusivity on the UFC brand. So to get on Versus, Zuffa had to add a new promotion. The game-changer was when UFC's latest contract with Spike allowed them a certain number of televised events not on Spike, which led to the two UFC events this year on Versus.

The idea of it being the home for lighter-weight fighters came about for a couple of reasons. First, UFC matchmaker Joe Silva felt it would give the group a distinct identity. Second, the most marketable fighter already under contract was its featherweight champion, Faber, who had been the face of the promotion dating back to the Lemoore days, and from Day 1 was promoted as the brand's superstar.

Originally, the promotion used every weight class from 135 through 205. But in late 2008, to avoid duplication and to make sure the focus was on the lightweights, the light heavyweight, middleweight and welterweight divisions were merged into UFC. This led to the improved quality of the shows, but it did not lead to consistently better ratings.

A second superstar was created when Miguel Angel Torres won the featherweight title from Chase Beebe on Feb. 13, 2008, in Albuquerque, N.M.

Popularity was hurt when Faber and Torres lost their championships, and the new champions simply couldn't match the popularity of the old. Faber lost to Mike Brown on Nov. 5, 2008, in Hollywood, Fla. That wasn't as damaging because Faber remained in championship contention. Two of the three biggest events in company history revolved around Faber challenging Brown, and then Aldo, who had beaten Brown, in title matches.

In Faber's rematch with Brown on June 7, 2009, in Sacramento, Brown won a decision in a fight-of-the-year candidate, but Faber didn't lose any popularity, as he showed tremendous guts and fortitude in lasting five competitive rounds while having broken both hands early on in the fight.

Torres, meanwhile, dropped his title to Brian Bowles on Aug. 9, 2009, in Las Vegas. He followed with a loss to Joseph Benavides and was never able to get a rematch. Bowles later lost his title to Dominick Cruz on March 6, in Columbus, Ohio, and Cruz will defend it against Scott Jorgensen on WEC's final event on Dec. 16.

The company's final superstar, and arguably the most talented fighter it ever had, was Aldo, who debuted on June 1, 2008, finishing Alexandre Franca Nogueira. He's run through the competition ever since, winning eight straight fights including dominant wins over Brown for the title, and over Faber in the group's only pay-per-view event. Aldo, ranked No. 3 in Yahoo! Sports pound-for-pound world ratings, opens up the merger on Jan. 1 when he'll defend the new UFC featherweight championship on pay-per-view.