UFC, WEC in Happy Mat-trimony
The problem with publicly criticizing privately-owned companies is the ignorance of their details.
But in the case of the exhaustively-discussed idea of a merger between the UFC and the WEC, observers did not necessarily require a MBA -- or even a GED -- to understand the pointlessness in nurturing two separate fight brands.
Why force fans to try and accept that there were two “world champions” at 155 pounds in Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar? Why was Dana White pitching the Jose Aldo/Urijah Faber bout? Why were UFC and WEC programs sometime in direct competition with one another on different cable channels?
Thursday, White announced that the UFC would finally be absorbing the WEC’s weight classes, evaporating the WEC brand in order to not only beef the UFC’s cards but have WEC talent capitalize on the more valuable banner. (UFC’s two branded events on Versus averaged almost twice as many viewers as several recent WEC programs.) It’s a move that may have been delayed due to various commitments, but it’s happened, and it’s hard to see why anyone involved would have ever objected.
Versus, for one, gets to sell ad time based on the premise of actual UFC programming, not just a production shingle that casual viewers pay little attention to; the UFC gets to bolster cards that have been looking a little thin as more and more events are scheduled; fighters get bonuses and pay increases relative to the UFC’s much, much bigger audience; the WEC’s production staff will now focus on the UFC’s efforts, meaning that projects like a cable channel or additional programming become easier to conceptualize and execute; and fans get to see undercards choking on talent, which sets this sport even further away from the one-fight-per-night mentality of boxing.
Presumably missed in the transfer: Todd Harris, who did a phenomenal job as a play-by-play broadcaster without feeling the need to insert himself as a personality; and the WEC’s smaller-diameter cage, which usually provoked fighters into busier exchanges. Still, it was the move to make. In Zuffa’s line of business, two was not better than one.
