Discussing the Inevitable: Why Zuffa Should Merge the UFC and WEC

(As part of the WKR: Year In Review Series, this was originally posted October 1st, 2010)

With WEC 51 now in the books, the inevitable discussion has arisen once again, will Zuffa make plans to merge the WEC and the UFC?  Although the WEC is profitable on it's own, it's facing the same issues as not only the UFC, but all the secondary promotions in the United States.  Market oversaturation is a very real thing, and although the sky isn't going to fall, it's hard to argue that too much of a good thing is a good thing at all.  For every UFC 116, we get a handful of UFC 119's.  Looking ahead, we also see many of the sports biggest names passing their primes, and there's more going out than there are coming in as of late.  I believe, without a doubt, that opening up the featherweight and bantweight classes in the UFC will aid the promotion in avoiding lack luster cards that send bloggers and journalists sounding alarms, but more importantly, lead to more money.

Don't get me wrong, the title of this post isn't "Why Zuffa NEEDS to Merge the UFC and WEC", I'm not under the impression that I have a fraction of the knowledge needed to run a multi-million dollar company, but neither of these promotions needs the other.  Yet, I do feel that all parties involved would be best served making this move, and us, the fans, will reap the benefits. 

After the jump, my three big motivators for making this hypothetical move a reality.

More Belts = More Money:

Two new weight classes means two more titles, and more meaningful match ups to fill out cards.  This means higher quality events all around, and a lower probability of getting main events like Frank Mir and Mirko Cro Cop.  Tonight's main event of Jose Aldo vs. Manny Gamburyan would have been a great headlining fight for UFC 119, with Mir and Cro Cop as the co-main event, and Bader/Nogueira on the undercard.  What went from a flimsy card, becomes significantly more worthy of the consumer's dollar.  That wouldn't stop the fights that happened from being boring, but my next point might have helped in this case.

Exciting Fights, More Often:

Without a doubt, the WEC is the home of some incredibly exciting fights.  Bringing these fights into the UFC will likely ease the pain of a card that's full of less than thrilling fights.  Let's roll the clock back, and say the UFC put a fight such as Leonard Garcia vs. Chan Sung Jung in the place of Nik Lentz vs. Andre Winner on the Spike TV prelims for UFC 118.  Garcia vs. Jung is one of many, many fights that would have been better than watching Lentz do his best Jon Fitch impersonation against Winner.  Everyone who was changing the channel, would have instead been calling their friends and family to tell them to tune in.  Once again, more money for the Zuffa family.

The Best in the World, in one Promotion:

The current situation with the UFC and WEC being separate is by no means a broken system, but it seems to me that the best in the world, regardless of weight class, need to be in the same promotion.  The UFC is an absolute promotional monster, and I'd wager that Zuffa can get more bang for their buck if they put the UFC name on fighters like Urijah Faber, Jose Aldo, and Miguel Torres.  This also opens up the WEC for something else.  I don't know what Zuffa will decide, but I've thought for a long time that the WEC would be well served if they took a good look at Bellator's tournament model, and started pushing out tournament winner's to the UFC.  We've seen Bellator pick up some of the top prospects in MMA, while the UFC's greatest tool to generate new faces is TUF, which has become less and less effective over time.  I don't have the answers, but there are possibilities that need to be examined, and in my opinion, the sooner, the better.

This move wouldn't be without it's downside.  Some of the lower echelon fighters in all weight classes will likely be cut to make room for two new weight classes. If the WEC did in fact stick around (although I would expect it to simply become the UFC, and the UFC opening up a new branch of shows to put on TV with that branch of the promotion) it wouldn't surprise me to see those cut fighters just end up taking a pay cut and being moved around.  It would be a necessary evil if the move was to occur, and it would likely be a huge pain in the ass, but the payoff will most certainly make it worthwhile.