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AMP Energy's "Hometown Takeover" contest, set up to bring a WEC event to the city of choice of the voting fans this December, has come to a close, and the winner will be revealed on next week's WEC 50: Cruz vs. Benavidez broadcast on Versus.
"There's a number of cities that are in contention, and we're going to announce it at our show Aug. 18 at The Palms, and it's going to be a big deal," WEC general manager Reed Harris said in comments made to MMAJunkie.com. "We're going to pack everything up and go wherever the fans tell us to go in December. We're real excited about that."
The contest had 30 cities for fans to choose from, and Harris said the response was much greater than AMP Energy was expecting.
"The AMP people told me the response was absolutely huge," Harris said. "They had hundreds of thousands of more votes than they had anticipated."
Harris also said that Versus needed to reserve 30 separate venues across a few different dates in December to make the contest possible. The 30 cities that were available to vote on are below:
* Atlanta
* Austin, Texas
* Boise, Idaho
* Boston
* Charlotte, N.C.
* Chicago
* Cincinnati
* Columbus, Ohio
* Dallas
* Denver
* Detroit
* Houston
* Indianapolis
* Los Angeles
* Miami
* Milwaukee
* Minneapolis
* Nashville, Tenn.
* Newark, N.J.
* Oklahoma City
* Orlando, Fla.
* Phoenix
* Philadelphia
* Portland
* Sacramento, Calif.
* Salt Lake City
* San Antonio, Texas
* St. Louis
* Seattle
* Washington, D.C.
Penick's Analysis: This was a really cool contest to see which area wanted to vote enough to get an event in their area. The surprise surge late was Milwaukee, who likely gained support from fans in the Chicago and Minneapolis areas as it was rising due to its proximity to those cities. Wisconsin's MMA regulation goes into effect next month, so barring a UFC or Strikeforce event there in the very near future, the WEC card could be the first major MMA event in the state. The other cities that were in the race at the top when they stopped showing the leaders were Atlanta, Georgia and Pheonix, Arizona.
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