World Extreme Cagefighting

World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion. It was purchased by Zuffa, LLC, the parent company of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), in 2006. In its final incarnation, it was made up of 3 weight classes: 135, 145 and 155 lbs. To accommodate the smaller fighters, the WEC's cage was 25 ft. in diameter—5 ft. smaller than the standard UFC cage.

History

The organization was started in 2001, by Scott Adams and Reed Harris. Between 2001 and 2006, most of their events were held in Lemoore, California and aired on HDNet.

In December 2006, Zuffa purchased the WEC. With the purchase, the WEC continued as a separate promotion with its own roster of fighters. Adams was retained after the purchase as the organization's matchmaker. Harris and Adams were named co-General Managers and were both active in the new WEC.^[1] In 2008, Sean Shelby was named the new match-maker for the promotion by Zuffa.

Zuffa made several changes to the promotion after the purchase. It discontinued its pentagonal cage for a modified version of the UFC's octagonal cage. The championships of fighters who were contracted UFC fighters were vacated. The promotion moved to focus on lighter weight classes, abandoning their heavyweight and super heavyweight divisions and championships, and retaining their bantamweight and featherweight divisions—two divisions not then present in the UFC.^[2] After the purchase, several of the WEC events were held in Zuffa's hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, much like the UFC.

The WEC aired their events live on Versus (formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network and now as the NBC Sports Network) in the United States and on TSN (and later The Score) in Canada.^[3] WEC's first live event was broadcast on June 3, 2007 on Versus from The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Todd Harris was the play by play announcer on every televised WEC event on Versus, and was joined by former UFC Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir on color commentary until the spring of 2010, when Mir was replaced by UFC light heavyweight Stephan Bonnar. Fellow Zuffa fighters Kenny Florian & Jens Pulver have also filled in on color commentary due to Mir or Bonnar's absences. UFC announcers Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan called the WEC's only pay-per-view event, WEC 48 in April 2010. Postfight interviews on the Versus-televised cards were typically done by either Harris or Versus sportscaster Craig Hummer.

Joe Martinez served as the announcer for Zuffa-promoted WEC events until April 2010, when he left the organization and was replaced by UFC announcer Bruce Buffer. However, Martinez made a one-off return at WEC 52 that November when Buffer was overseas for a UFC event.

The WEC announced that it would dissolve their light heavyweight and middleweight divisions after their December 3, 2008 event to further their concentration on lighter classes. Fighters from the light heavyweight and middleweight divisions started fighting in the UFC after the dissolution of their divisions.^[4] Also, on February 3, 2009, the WEC officially announced the creation of a 125 lb. flyweight division and the dissolution of its welterweight division (flyweight would have been the last division under the "Unified Rules of MMA" to be activated under Zuffa, excluding Super Heavyweight). Fighters from the welterweight division started fighting in the UFC after the dissolution of their division. The only weight class that still crossed over between the WEC and the UFC prior to the merger was the 155 lb lightweight division.^[5]

On January 8, 2010, World Extreme Cagefighting announced that AMP Energy would be the official energy drink of WEC. Amp Energy also sponsored three of the WEC's top stars - featherweight Urijah Faber, featherweight Chad Mendes, and bantamweight Joseph Benavidez.

On April 24, 2010, the WEC held its only pay-per-view event, WEC 48, which featured two championship fights. The main event featured WEC Featherweight Champion José Aldo defending his title against former champion Urijah Faber.^[6]

On October 28, 2010, UFC President Dana White announced that the WEC would merge with the UFC.^[7]

Relationship with UFC

Due to its shared ownership under Zuffa, fans and commentators had continually speculated about a unification between the WEC and the UFC, particularly the lower weight classes.^[8][9][10] The 125-145 classes were of particular interest because the WEC's champions at those weight-classes are competitive with the best MMA fighters in the world, whereas the 155-pound class (and prior, heavier weight-classes) were effectively minor-league caliber compared to their UFC counterparts. The relationship between the WEC and UFC had also been complicated by their respective primary partnerships with cable television channels, Versus and Spike. Fight Magazine reports:

[Keeping the WEC] made a certain kind of sense in that it allowed Zuffa to extend its reach without overextending the UFC staff while squatting on Versus, a cable channel interested in broadcasting MMA. Why Zuffa decided to retain a 155-pound division in the WEC remains a mystery, but discussions about a 125-pound flyweight division and a contract extension with Versus despite the fact that the channel was dropped by DirectTV pointed to at least a couple more years of promotional independence... But then... the UFC announced that it would air events on Versus in 2010. On its face, the deal further jumbles an already confusing relationship between the UFC, WEC, the UFC’s basic cable partner Spike TV, and Versus...No one is kidding themselves about the WEC staying independent forever – the promotion will be folded into the UFC eventually, if for no other reason than trying to promote an MMA fighter who isn’t in the UFC is a Sisyphean task... But by keeping the WEC independent for as long as they have, and maintaining a presence on Versus, the UFC has positioned itself beautifully for future TV deals and given Versus a major bargaining chip in future negotiations with DirectTV....Versus is owned by Comcast, which just acquired NBC Universal. NBC flirted with MMA through its late-night Strikeforce show but a UFC card in primetime would deliver NFL-playoff like ratings and ad revenues for a network that is struggling to retain what few young viewers it has left.^[11]

On October 28, Dana White announced that the WEC would be merging with the UFC in early 2011.^[12]

Media coverage

On December 11, 2006 UFC parent-company, Zuffa formalized plans to buy World Extreme Cagefighting, to be run as a separate promotion from the UFC. Following the purchase of the WEC, Zuffa made several changes to the promotion. One of the most note worthy changes included added media exposure when WEC signed a deal to air events on Versus beginning with WEC 28. Prior to this the WEC had broadcast most of their events on HDNet.

While on Versus, the WEC drew good ratings that averaged around 575,000 average viewers per event. However ratings ranged from 245,000 to 1,500,000.

The biggest ratings draw for the WEC was clearly, Urijah Faber. When Faber was featured in a main event he drew an average of 840,000 viewers. Faber was also featured in both main events (34 and 41) that drew over a million viewers for the WEC.

The following table shows the international broadcasting of the WEC events: