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What the UFC and WEC merger means to fans, fighters, and everything else.

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

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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?

All it means is more competition and that's never a bad thing in sports.

I love it. WEC is the most exciting org in the world in my opinion and has endless talent. This will be great for everyone.

Over the past few years we have seen more and more snoozer ppv's from the UFC, meanwhile I have yet to see an unimpressive WEC event. This is probably Dana's way of infusing more excitement into his shows. I'm all for more exposure for WEC talent. Lookin forward to some good fights!

I'm hoping the WEC guys will bring some of that fire that makes their events so special to the sometimes lazy UFC fighters.

I think it'll be a great idea! The only thing I dislike is that this thread is almost the same as mine hahah.

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Originally Posted by Awesomeryde (Post 765401)

I think it'll be a great idea! The only thing I dislike is that this thread is almost the same as mine hahah.

haha just checked yr thread, my bad man. consider it my extra long opinion

its great but i gotta feeling only about 10 of the wec lw will stick around or have to drop in wieght

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Originally Posted by rob_bills (Post 765404)

haha just checked yr thread, my bad man. consider it my extra long opinion

Haha fine fine your off the hook this time rob_bills, but only this time lol.

I don't think this will give more challenges to guys like Alvarez and Melendez. It might strengthen the Bellator tourney talent pool once the UFC castoffs are looking for work, but top 5 guys like Alvarez and Melendez shouldn't be fighting UFC castoffs.

The thing I really like is that we can probably see guys like Frankie Edgar fight at his natural weight. I know there are guys in the LW division who are fighting there just because the financial opportunities are much greater in the UFC. Now the FW will be on the same level as LW, Edgar can feel free to drop down if he falls on hard times. I'm not saying he needs to, but alot of smaller fighters in other division have the luxury of moving down when things aren't going well (Wandy, Bisping, Vera, Kampmann, etc).

Also, it's gotta be nice for the WEC guys knowing that if they put on a show, they will make UFC level win bonuses. George Roop would have definetly made 70 large for the head kick if that fight was in the UFC, as opposed to the 10 he made for.