Most fight fans don’t like to think of the competitors inside the cage or the ring as ordinary people, but they are. The larger than life characters on the television have all the same worries as you and me; how to advance in their chosen field, how to provide for their family and above all how to maintain gainful employment. You might think that with the UFC doing record business that its many employees would be free of the concerns that blight everyone else in a recession ravaged economy but alas in 2011 that won’t be the case. The long overdue decision to merge the WEC with its big brother the UFC leaves Zuffa with a bloated roster, with more fighters than even Joe Silva has spots to fill. And in no division is the field more crowded than the lightweight division.
Before the Zuffa purchase, WEC had a full roster of divisions but after being bought to block the IFL from getting onto Versus, the number of divisions was gradually reduced in an attempt to both eliminate any overlap with the UFC and position WEC as the home of the best lighter weight fighters in the world. By 2008 this strategy left the lightweight division as the only one shared by the two Zuffa promotions, a weird quirk that MMA fans were perhaps too quick to ignore when mocking boxing for its multitude of world titles. And it remained there for the next two years, arguably (?) taking up time, space and energy that would have been better used establishing a flyweight division. In any case the WEC lightweight division developed some interesting fighters and for those paying attention provided some legendary fights, many of them involving the main who will walk into the last ever WEC fight as the reigning and defending champion.
Ben Henderson has grown into the role of champion, a secondary champion perhaps but a champion none the less. In many ways he best showed the value of Zuffa having a minor league to the UFC’s major league. Away from the pressure of fighting the best in the world, Henderson bloomed into somebody who deserved to be a major player at 155Ibs. Last year he contested one of the all-time great five-round fights (got that Mauro?) against Donald Cerrone before this year catching the Cowboy in a tight gullointine to win the co-main event of WEC’s only PPV in just two minutes. Between those two fights, he caught Jamie Varner in the same hold to defeat him in the third round to unify the linear and interim WEC titles.
The two fighters he vanquished had their own classic series of matches, with the controvesial finish of their first match leading to Cerrone-Varner II being in many ways the real main event of WEC 51. After Cerrone avenged his disputed loss to Varner in front of his hometown fans, it seemed everything was set for the two of them to settle their score in Phoneix, Arizonia…Varner’s hometown. Even the fighters themselves realised that this was almost so perfect an ending place for their feud that it belonged in pro-wrestling, with Henderson openly challenging Varner to an instant rematch at WEC 53. Idiotically Zuffa ignored the chance to put the strongest possible match for WEC’s final show instead having both fighters face other opponents. Even stranger they put Varner, the hometown fighter and the man that started the year as the linear WEC champion on the non-televised preliminary card. A bizarre decision by Zuffa may have stopped both fighers capturing the attention of fight fans, but at least they both have the chance to end their WEC career with a solid win.
Win…that’s the word that flashes like a neon light above the heads of all WEC lightweights. Hell, it flashes like a neo light above all UFC lightweights as well. For all divisions the UFC is having to shed numbers so the roster depth matches the available slots, but the pressure is worse at lightweight due to the fact that as of December 17th the UFC will have more than twice the number of fighters than it actually needs. Some will make the long delayed move down to 145Ibs but those that can’t make the cut will be left in an incredibly tense dog-eat-dog world. A loss, even an entertaining loss, could well earn the fighter a one-way ticket to cutsville. Every lightweight fighter that enters the UFC on Friday morning will be enterting the most competitive buyers market in the history of mixed martial arts.
Well, ever fighter except one. As for Ben Henderson and his opponent Anthony Petitis they have the unique chance to earn a shot at the UFC champion. If you listen to some MMA commentators this is equivalent of Honky Tonk Man getting facing Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania 4, but that’s deeply unfair. In a division with few obvious challengers after Gray Maynard, the UFC could do a lot worse than the winner of Henderson vs. Petitis. While Petitis is 11-1, on a three fight win streak but to me I can’t see beyond Henderson’s well-rounded skills and superb athleticism. Indeed, I truly believe that Henderson has the skills to give either Frankie Edgar or Gray Maynard a true test when the unification fight happens in the spring.
