...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
As next weekend's WEC 48 event continues to lose any semblance of being a WEC event, I'm almost expecting to hear an announcement that the blue cage won't be in use and the fights will be taking place in the Octagon.
Along with Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg doing commentary on the event and Spike TV airing preliminary card fights leading into the show, Bruce Buffer has now come out and said that he'll be handling ring announcer duties instead of Joe Martinez. With Dana White also promoting this event, this is the WEC only in name.
The UFC needs to integrate the featherweight and bantamweight divisions into UFC, and allow the best fighters in those divisions to fight on the biggest stage and have a chance to earn the fame and paydays that come along with being a Champion in the UFC. That's essentially what they're doing for this show, but if this is the only way they think they can sell this pay-per-view then it's a sign that they should be bringing these fights and fighters into the UFC fold.
The WEC can be used as a great feeder system for all of the UFC's divisions, and would allow some of the fighters that perhaps aren't ready for the big stage or who have struggled in the UFC to have a higher level of exposure and still be under the Zuffa umbrella. At this point it just doesn't make sense to keep the top fighters in the featherweight and bantamweight divisions out of the UFC when the UFC is pretty much running the show next weekend for the biggest event in the WEC's history.
The paydays are bigger, the exposure is much bigger and clearly they believe the product is bigger and better in the UFC if they're taking control like this. If this was a UFC event with these fights on the card it would bring in a lot more than 100,000-150,000 viewers, and as such everyone involved would benefit greatly. They're simply missing out on a potentially big stream of revenue and the ability to flesh out more cards with really high end talent by keeping the organizations separate and keeping the lower weight classes out of the UFC.
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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