After months of speculation, World Extreme Cagefighting has announced plans to hold its first pay-per-view event on April 24th at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento, California. The stacked card will feature at least two explosive title fights and will be available at a cost of $44.95.
Headlining the debut PPV event will be a WEC Featherweight Championship bout between Jose “Junior” Aldo and promotional posterboy “The California Kid” Urijah Faber. Ben “Smooth” Henderson will rematch Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone for the WEC Lightweight Championship.
WEC General Manager Reed Harris stated that the promotion could have made the jump to PPV in the past, but wished to wait until a card could be put together that would leave paying fans satisfied with the result. The added revenue from the pay-per-view broadcast will allow the WEC to better compensate its talented roster of fighters. At present, fighters in the WEC are paid significantly less than their UFC counterparts, despite putting on excellent performances in what are often tremendous WEC fights.
Faber (23-3-0), the former 145-pound champion who remains as one of the biggest stars in the company, will challenge Aldo for the WEC Featherweight Championship in a blockbuster main event on the card. Aldo (16-1-0) has won all six of his WEC fights thus far and captured the title with a second-round dismantling of former champ Mike Brown at WEC 44 in November. A win for Faber would place the charismatic Californian back on top of the division, while a loss would likely leave him out of title contention for the foreseeable future.
After their five-round Fight of the Year battle at WEC 43 in October, lightweight standouts Henderson (11-1-0) and Cerrone (11-2-0, 1 NC) will square off once again on the April card. Their first meeting ended with Henderson claiming the vacant WEC Interim Lightweight Championship with a razor-thin decision victory. This time, Henderson’s undisputed WEC Lightweight Championship will be on the line after he took the title from Jamie “The Worm” Varner in January.
In another explosive featherweight matchup, former champion Mike Brown (23-5-0) will clash with rising contender Manny “The Anvil” Gamburyan (10-4-0) in what will likely be a title eliminator bout. Brown rebounded from his lopsided title loss to Aldo with a quick win over Anthony “Cheesesteak” Morrison at WEC 46. Gamburyan has yet to taste defeat in the WEC and picked up a hard-fought decision win over former title challenger Leonard “Bad Boy” Garcia at WEC 44.
The promotion has stated that pay-per-view will be reserved for only its best events, while the remainder of WEC programming will continue to air on the Versus network. The debut PPV card is set for April 24th, which may also serve as the date for Strikeforce’s return to CBS. Should the two forces go head-to-head on the 24th, it will be interesting to see how each show performs in the ratings.
(Photo Credit: Sherdog.com)