Report: WEC inaugural PPV to take place on April 24th in Sacramento
by Zak Woods on Feb 3, 2010 2:37 PM EST
in News
8 comments
The Associated Press reports:
World Extreme Cagefighting will stage its first pay-per-view event April 24, scheduling a star-stacked card for its first attempt to persuade mixed martial arts fans to pay $44.99 for its fights.
Urijah Faber will meet featherweight champion Jose Aldo in the main event of WEC 48 from Sacramento, Calif., the lighter-weight MMA promotion's leaders told The Associated Press before Wednesday's announcement.
Former featherweight champion Mike Brown also will meet Manny Gamburyan at Arco Arena, and lightweight champion Ben Henderson will fight Donald Cerrone in a rematch of their acclaimed October bout.
Previously, WEC GM, Reed Harris, had mentioned that World Extreme Cagefighting was looking at May as the likely time frame for the WEC's first foray into pay-per view. The potential of a May WEC PPV seemed a poor choice as it is a particualarly crowded pay-per view month with both UFC 113 and 114 taking place as well as the Mayweather-Mosley fight and WWE Judgement Day.
The AP report also confirms the previously rumored fight between Mike Brown (23-5) and Manny Gamburyan (10-4) . Gamburyan is a former UFC fighter and TUF season five alum.
The WEC usually does very well in Sacramento, California as it is Urijah Faber's (23-3) hometown. Faber is currently one of, if not the top draw within the WEC. Most observers speculated that Faber's title shot against WEC featherweight champion, Jose Aldo (16-1), would take place at Arco Arena.
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i hope mike brown is just a slight favorite over manny g.
b/c i see ktfo’d all over this one.
i'm all about covering the spread and moneylines. i was building a house, i don't deserve this, deserves have nothing to do with it. bang. "unforgiven"
by wolfmanshowlforever on Feb 3, 2010 4:53 PM EST reply actions
Conspiracy theory ; Zuffa is setting this card up for mediocrity on purpose
so they’ll have a legitimate reason to merge the promotions by the third quarter of next year. Why else would they schedule it so close to all the other events and charge that price when the overhead for this event will still be a lot lower than a UFC one(You’d think) for a product that used to be free?
There are constant reports that the promotions will merge this year, but the WEC side always denies it. This is just the Zuffa looking for an excuse to pull the trigger and lay off most of the WEC staff in the cleanest way possible. The WEC isn’t needed to hold VS anymore, and the UFC’s most recent cycle of PPVs was starved for title fights and main event talents. The writing is on the wall.
Of course that is a bit extreme, no business “wants” a product to fail, but I will be curious to see if the typical Zuffa marketing strategy is used for this card, what they will consider a “success” and what they do if and when this card doesn’t succeed. This is a “feeler” card. If it fails, it will likely be one of the last WEC cards ever.
While I do think that Zuffa will eventually merge the WEC into the UFC you are forgetting that the WEC re-signed a broadcast deal with Versus. Until that runs out there is no way a “true” merger will happen.
The WEC making the PPV cost $45 is def them trying to establish a price for their product. You can always lower later.
Zuffa probably wants to see how strong the brand is and what the long-term viability of the promotion is rather than an occupier on Versus.
Also having it during April ensures that Zuffa will be able to cost-promote with their other events. There are a large contingent of fans who simply don’t get MMA/UFC news online and only see it in commercials/other marketing.
watchkalibrun.com
A WEC deal with VS existing doesn't stop a merger.
I’m no expert in TV deals or anything, but deals like that pass to the new merged entity, or are voided all together with mergers. Something like that doesn’t block a merger at all. It’s not like Zuffa would abandon VS with the advent of a merger, the only reason the WEC existed was to hold VS. They’ve already signed a UFC deal for two cards, so it is likely they’d just restructure the agreement to bring further UFC programming on VS.
Zuffa would most likely have to pay Versus money if they weren’t putting on the contractual required shows on the network
watchkalibrun.com
Everything has a "parent company"
GE isn’t bound to every deal random subsidaries that are created and folded on a daily basis make, and unless the WEC VS deal is worded specifically to bind Zuffa, if the WEC expires, so would the deal. Like I said, I don’t know everything about this kind of stuff, nor have I seen the contract language specifically, but I doubt some small fry TV contract would prevent the merger from happening. I am sure a combined UFC/WEC would work out a new deal with VS and have enough fighters to keep putting on regular events.
There is no way Zuffa can run two promotions under a PPV model.
Zuffa probably wants to see how strong the brand is and what the long-term viability of the promotion is rather than an occupier on Versus.
The UFC already offers a full slate of PPVs a year as it is, and WEC talent more and more will demand UFC – level PPV model dollars.
The WEC won’t be able to maintain the talent they have paying what a regional promotion pays much longer, and there is no way they could switch entirely to a PPV model. Zuffa would simply compete with itself and over saturate the market.
The more I think about this, the less likely it appears making it out of 2010 is in the WEC’s future. It just isn’t possible.
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