Don’t Forget! WEC 42 on Versus this Sunday
August 7, 2009 by Ryan Harkness
Filed under MMA-UFC
While the majority of the MMA world is eagerly awaiting UFC 101, there’s another fight event going on Sunday night that you may not have heard about: World Extreme Cagefighting 42.
WEC 42 Poster - Image: WEC
What the hell is the WEC? It’s the UFC’s sister promotion, owned and operated by the same group of people. As for why Zuffa (the parent company of the UFC and WEC) owns two separate MMA promotions, the story is kinda amusing. Since SpikeTV has exclusive cable rights to live UFC events, so there was no way for the UFC to make a deal with the Versus channel. So Zuffa picked up World Extreme Cagefighting, a popular and well run California promotion, and put them on Versus instead. Yep, the UFC is sneaky like that.
But the key difference between the UFC and WEC are the weight classes. The WEC is focused around it’s bantamweight (135 pound) and featherweight (145 pound) divisions, which keep providing a large number of Fight of the Year candidates. The standard negative opinion on lower weightclass fights doesn’t apply here: there are finishes aplenty and the lighter guys never gas out, guaranteeing action from start to finish.
This Sunday features arguably the best fighter in the WEC, bantamweight champion Miguel Torres, defending his belt against the undefeated Brian Bowles. I’m firmly expecting Torres to win this fight not because he’s facing an easy opponent but because Torres is freaking awesome and I love him. Honestly, you couldn’t ask for a scrappier champ … this guy loves a brawl and also has sick ground skills. Wherever the fight goes, my bet is that Bowles is in for a beating.
If you don’t feel like spending money on the UFC pay per view this weekend but are still jonesing for a mixed martial arts fix, you really can’t go wrong with checking out the WEC event this Sunday on Versus at 9PM. You might not know who all the fighters are (yet), but they haven’t put on a dud card in a very long time and regularly have some of the best events of the year. I highly recommend taking a look. And just to get you off the fence, here’s a highlight of Miguel Torres:
