UFC
UFC NEWS: Dana White talks about the WEC 48 pay-per-view, says WEC lightweights will eventually join the UFC
Apr 20, 2010 - 9:45:52 AM UFC NEWS: Dana White talks about the WEC 48 pay-per-view, says WEC lightweights will eventually join the UFC

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

With the UFC crew handling pay-per-view duties this weekend for WEC 48, there's been more of a call for the UFC to merge the two promotions together. For the lightweight division, at least, that may be coming in the near future.

UFC President Dana White talked to Sergio Non at USA Today this week, and in an interview spanning a number of topics, discussed the WEC pay-per-view this weekend and much more.

"The way I look at it is, [the WEC] a Zuffa promotion, and this is the team for pay-per-view. Obviously when the WEC is on Versus, they have their team and everything else, but this is the pay-per-view team."

White is still confident that the pay-per-view will sell well for the WEC, as he said "I'll tell you, this is a good fight this weekend. You've got Jose Aldo and Urijah Faber as the main event, and (Donald) Cerrone and Ben Henderson as the co-main event. It's a great fight. Pay-per-view is still the cheapest form of entertainment. Nobody sits home at night and watches a UFC event by themselves for $45... You have a great night with all your friends, watching great fights, for four or five bucks apiece."

As for the future of the WEC on pay-per-view, considering how stacked of a card they've set up for this weekend, White added "There's great fights in the WEC. Anybody that's ever watched these guys fight on Versus knows how these guys always perform. If we did three WEC pay-per-views a year, I think people are going to be interested in buying them."

White was asked about the overlap in the lightweight division between the WEC and UFC as well, saying, "I actually think it's kind of cool. I think eventually what we do is, we're going to continue to add to lighter weights, and you'll end up seeing these (WEC) guys go into the UFC, the 155 pounders."

White also talked about Urijah Faber's star status and drawing ability in the WEC, and compared it to Dan Henderson's failure as a draw for Strikeforce:

"Urijah Faber -- the guy's been a breakthrough star. I'll give you an example. Dan Henderson. We butted heads with Dan Henderson. Dan Henderson thought he was worth more money than we thought he was, so he ended up leaving and going with Strikeforce.

"Dan Henderson, up until last week, I think it was last Thursday, which was a couple of days before they showed it, they had sold 4,000 tickets in Tennessee, with Dan Henderson headlining. The Urijah Faber card versus Aldo had sold 10,000. This thing's going to be a sellout over there in Arco (Arena). The ratings on that (Strikeforce) show were (freaking) horrifying, just like the rest of the show. The ratings were as horrifying as the rest of it. I think we're going to pull good numbers on pay-per-view."

WEC 48 comes live on pay-per-view this weekend, headlined by the Urijah Faber vs. Jose Aldo bout for the WEC Featherweight Championship.

Penick's Analysis: It's unfortunate they're still looking at keeping the lower weight classes separate, but there are some great lightweight fights to be head with Donald Cerrone, Ben Henderson, Jamie Varner and more in the UFC's lightweight division, so hopefully that's a change they'll take care of soon. As we get closer to the event, I think the event will do alright on pay-per-view; there are just too many good fights that a lot of fight fans will want to tune in for. The UFC needs to give it one major hard sell during TUF this week and also during the one hour prelims on Spike on Saturday.

RELATED STORY: PENICK'S BLOG: Need for a UFC-WEC merger becoming more apparent as UFC takes over WEC 48: [CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE]