As 2008 came to a close, so did World Extreme Cagefighting's 185- and 205-pound weight divisions. But as one door closes another opens.
MMAWeekly.com sources on Tuesday revealed that the WEC is adding a 125-pound flyweight division. With WEC 38 in San Diego just three weeks away, no 125-pound bouts are expected for that fight card. The promotion's next event, likely in March, is a more apt candidate to host the WEC's new commitment to flyweight fighters.
Following its purchase by Zuffa in late 2006, the WEC has worked to find a niche for its product. Televised on the Versus television network, the promotion quickly found that it did not have enough talent to fill its middleweight and light heavyweight divisions, officially putting both weight classes on hiatus following WEC 37 in December.
WEC and UFC still maintain crossover categories in the lightweight and welterweight classes. Those two divisions, however, have a vast amount of talented fighters to draw from, although the WEC has had a difficult time finding a variety of challengers to Carlos Condit's welterweight championship.
Over the course of 2008, the featherweight and bantamweight divisions became the obvious points of distinction for the WEC. The flyweight category is the natural progression for the WEC to continue growing separate from the UFC.
The 125-pound flyweight division is already a recognized category by most athletic commissions. With its addition to the WEC, that leaves only the super heavyweight class (fighters over 265 pounds) as the only highly recognized weight division not utilized by either the WEC or the UFC.
UFC President Dana White mentioned to FightersOnly magazine, that the highly anticipated UFC heavyweight unification bout between Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir could happen as early as April, possibly at UFC 97.
“Mir took little damage in his fight with Nog, and Lesnar wants to fight him soon, so April may be the time and place for that. It will be good,”
White also called the series of heavyweight fights a “Tournament”. The UFC heavyweight belt was broken up after Randy Couture left the UFC only to return and lose his belt to Brock Lesnar at UFC 91.
The Rua family has already contributed two fighters in Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Murilo “Ninja” Rua to the sport of mixed martial arts but a third Rua is now set to make his pro debut within the next several months.
The Brazilian MMA website Tatame is reporting that Marcos “Baby” Rua will be entering the profession of mixed martial arts in March, if not sooner.
Marcos, the 22-year old younger brother of Murilo, 28, and Mauricio, 27, had been scheduled to debut at an event in January that has now been postponed until March. However, it appears that his brother’s first fight can’t come enough for Mauricio.
[We thought] he would fight at “The Glory” [and] that [it] would happen at January, but was delayed to March. [However,] want to see him fighting before,” he is quoted as telling Tatame.
Marcos trains with both of his brothers at Universidade da Luta (which translates to “University of Fighting” in English) in Curitiba, Brazil and being the biggest of the three, appears ticketed for the light heavyweight division.
The youngest of the three fighting Rua brothers received a small amount of exposure in the United States when he traveled to South Florida to corner oldest brother Murilo for his EliteXC fight against Benji Radach on CBS.
Any question as to whether Marcos shares the same undying loyalty that Mauricio and Murilo have for each other was answered soon after “Ninja’s” second round TKO loss. While it was not visible on camera, he became so overcome by emotion by the condition of his fallen brother that he had to exit the cage.
While Marcos Rua awaits his MMA debut, the next member of the Rua family that is scheduled to fight is Mauricio, who will take on Mark Coleman at UFC 93 on January 17 in Dublin, Ireland.
Just when you thought it was safe to pull one over on the California State Athletic Commission, word comes down that Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva is getting slapped harder than Badr Hari after the K-1 GP Finals. According to Dave Meltzer of Yahoo! Sports, the CSAC has not taken kindly to Silva’s blatant disregard for the steroid-related suspension he received this past summer, and as punishment are now looking to revoke Silva’s fighter license. The commission is even going an unprecedented step further, fining Silva’s manager (Alex Davis of American Top Team) $2,500 just for negotiating the Sengoku bout which Silva won only two days ago.
So how bad would a revoking of Silva’s license really be you ask? This bad:
“A license revocation would mean Silva, and his corner men, would be banned from fighting in all U.S. commission states until California granted him a new license, which would be no less than one year from the date of it being revoked. Such an action would force whatever form EliteXC that potentially resurfaces this year to strip Silva of the title.”
Well there’s always the land of the rising sun, right Antonio?
Given, Antonio Silva didn’t have to ignore the CSAC’s ruling to instead compete in the “we don’t care” island of Japan, but I do feel a little sympathy for the guy. The man has to eat just like anyone else and being suspended from your job for one year, especially in this economy, has to be difficult even for a mildly popular professional fighter. Not to mention the CSAC has its own ocean of problems which seem to bring down their credibility about every other week.
Any how, Silva will have his day in front of the commission on February 10th, where he and one can only imagine a variety of lawyers will be doing their best to mend fences with Bill Douglas and crew. Oh the suspense.
