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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
One of the major arguments for bringing the WEC fighters into the UFC fold is the large disparity in pay between the fighters in the two organizations under the Zuffa umbrella. For WEC 48, at least, that difference in pay will be a bit smaller.
According to UFC President Dana White in comments made to MMAJunkie.com, "the WEC fighters on this card will make more money than they've ever made before."
The WEC is making their debut on pay-per-view on Saturday, and despite much lower buy rate projections than any UFC event, White is expecting a successful card and enough of a fan base from Versus to get people to want to pay for these fights.
"There's an evolution," White said. "When we started the WEC, you build a fan base on television, you get these guys some exposure, people know them, and then you make the leap to pay-per-view and hopefully it works out.
"I believe we've done all the right things up to this point to take a stacked card like this with a great main event and co-main event... and hopefully take the lighter-weight guys to the next level... Everybody needs to make more money... everybody wants to make more money. t's human nature. But we know how to do it; we do it the right way... We're not going to blow our brains out."
Penick's Analysis: This is good news for the fighters in the WEC, but it should be expected with this move to pay-per-view. These guys are more than deserving of paydays similar to their UFC counterparts; and even though none are getting any cut of the pay-per-view revenue, hopefully people support them and check these fights out, because they are more than worth the money this weekend. It's a tough pay-per-view climate for them to succeed in, but they should hopefully be able to garner over 100,000 for such a great card.
RELATED STORY: UFC NEWS: Dana White talks about the WEC 48 pay-per-view, says WEC lightweights will eventually join the UFC: [CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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