Poll: UFC-WEC merging in 2010?

Biggest MMA event of the planet, UFC has plans even bigger to 2010. Sources close to WEC informed TATAME.com that the UFC will add new weights categories on the next year, bringing athletes with contract with WEC, that was bought by Zuffa – same organization that commands the UFC – in 2006.



This year, UFC scheduled 20 events – WEC made only eight –, but the bigger amount of athletes would force the organization to make a bigger number of annual shows. According to sources close to the event, Zuffa called all the fighters with contract with WEC in Las Vegas earlier this month, telling about the merger and revealing that they plan three events for month in the future.



With the change, the Brazilians José Aldo, Raphael Assunção, Wagnney Fabiano, Rafael Dias, Marco Galvão, Douglas Lima, Diego Nunes, Frédson Paixão and Rani Yahya would became UFC athletes, joining the team of 22 Brazilian fighters with contract with Ultimate.



On the next Wednesday, WEC 44 will define the featherweight champion on the fight between Mike Brown and José Aldo, what could, joining the events, define who would become the first UFC featherweight champion. Besides that, WEC has two more shows scheduled until January 2010.

pinsman wrote:Adding weights would make it easier for certain fighters to shine, some guys are just in no man's land, having to ether be the smaller guy in a weight cat or having to cut loads of weight to make a weight cat making them vulnerable to fatigue. Can only be a good thing in my opinion.

Just thinking of fighters who would benefit:

Rich Franklin
Wanderli Silva
Vitor Belfort

HAHA Mike Bisping!

payneNglory1 wrote:Fighters like MTB,Aldo,Faber,Torres and Bowles are not getting the attention they deserve fighting in the WEC.They should all be showcasing there talants on the UFC big stage.

If the WEC became a league 2 for the UFC,that would become a great breeding ground for new talent and UFC fighters like your Ed Hermans,Pete sells and other fighters of that calibre would make the perfect fighters to test themselves.

Also hopefully it would mean more work for some of these fighters that would be forced into fighting for peanuts at little shows normally if the UFC released them.

Anfields5thKing wrote:WEC would cease to exist if that happened. Nobody is going to pay decent money to watch second rate fighters. And the WEC fanbase are fans of the WEC because it's the smaller fighters all the time. They won't be impressed if they merge them and they have to watch Miguel Torres be 3rd on a card to Lesnar-Carwin and Mir-Kongo for example.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship plans to merge with World Extreme Cagefighting in January 2011.

UFC president Dana White confirmed the news earlier today with MMAFighting.com, and a formal announcement is scheduled this afternoon.

The merger's primary intent is to fold the WEC's bantamweight, featherweight and lightweight divisions into the UFC.

"The timing was right," White said. "The reality is we purchased the WEC, (and) we started getting these lighter-weight guys exposure on television. ... Now, as the UFC continues to grow globally, and we're doing more and more fights, now we're bringing in those lighter weightclasses."

WEC 52 and WEC 53, scheduled for Nov. 11 and Dec. 16, respectively, will be the final events under the existing promotion. In January, the lighter-weighted promotion will cede its talent to the UFC.

White said the WEC's featherweight champion, Jose Aldo, will become the UFC featherweight champion when he first fights inside the octagon in January. Current WEC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz defends his title against top contender Scott Jorgensen at WEC 53.

The WEC's lightweight championship will also be on the line at WEC 53 as current champ Ben Henderson takes on Anthony Pettis. It's currently unclear what will become of the WEC's lightweight title, but UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta hinted of a champion vs. champion superfight at the UFC Fan Expo London 2010.

"We'd love to see kind of a 'champion vs. champion' type bout with Ben and Frankie Edgar or something like that," Fertitta said. "Ben Henderson is a great fighter, and I think he could do really, really well against some of the top guys in the UFC at 155 (pounds)."

Zuffa, LLC, the UFC's parent company, purchased the WEC in 2006. The lighter-weighted promotion quickly found a new television partner, Versus channel, which aired all but a few of its events. WEC 48 also went to pay-per-view and was considered a rousing success.

According to White, four UFC events in 2011 will air on Versus, the current home of the WEC. Additionally, the UFC's longtime partnership with Spike TV will also remain in place

Brown Pride wrote:And i posted this thread in Nov 2009



Sorry mate, i didnt check that thread....