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Source: mma reel: What the UFC and WEC merger means to fans, fighters, and everything else.

Today was a historic day for mma, it was announced that the WEC will be merging entirely into daddy company UFC complete with the lighter and oft more exciting weight classes. Now this is great news for us fans, it means more fights, more events and a much more diverse cast of fighters than the ones we are used to.

Firstly we get to see great fighters get the exposure they deserve, fighters like Jose Aldo, Urijah Faber, Benson Henderson, Donald Cerrone, Jamie Varner, Dominick Cruz, and Miguel Torres are now all in the mix, and will finally be able to promote themselves to much greater effect.

Another great thing for us fans is that you can guarantee that after the merger is complete we will see stacked cards all year round, there will now be seven total weight classes and that means roughly 14 title fights or more each year. That means hardly a month can go by without a title being put on the line and that to me is a completely exiting prospect, it has never been a better time to be an mma fan.

There are a few concerns however, especially for the lightweight's,we will now see a much more crowded and competitive division and while this is all well and good it begs the question that had Nate Diaz lost his 2 fights in a row at lightweight would he have been cut from the new, more talent filled division? or what about Joe Stevenson? Maybe even fan fave Clay Guida? This is purely speculative but it does have some weight, it makes sense that in a bigger, more competitive division fighters will have much less of a chance at redemption. All these fighters have proved their worth since their losses but its something worth contemplating.

Whats UFC's loss will be Strikeforce and Bellators gain, it is likely that we will see much more lightweight cast offs venture to these promotions which can only be a good thing, both org's lightweight divisions are lacking to say the least. Maybe Alvarez will have some more, shall we say, interesting match up's? The same applies to Gilbert Melendez.

So what are your thought's on all this?