WEC pay-per-view (PPV) debut likely for May with Aldo vs Faber
by Nate Lawson on Jan 31, 2010 5:28 PM EST
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Reed Harris, the General Manager of World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), has been adamant for the past year that his promotion would soon make the move to pay-per-view (PPV) at some point in the near future.
It seems the future Harris was referring to is almost near -- he announced that the WEC would coordinate its first-ever PPV event this coming May, WEC 48, which will be headlined by perhaps the most notable match up in promotion's history, Urijah Faber taking on 145-pound champion, Jose Aldo.
Harris made the announcement this past week on The Dave and Mahoney Show. The WEC executive wants the PPV to be priced at $44.95, which is the going rate for every UFC event on PPV.
The Zuffa-owned promotion has been running its events through the Versus networks, free for fans to enjoy on Sunday, and occasionally, Saturday nights. It is no mystery that the WEC is going to have to put together quite the card for this event to be a success.
Urijah Faber vs. Jose Aldo for the featherweight championship is a good start, but with stars such as Miguel Torres, Brian Bowles, and Dominick Cruz all signed up for WEC 47 on March 6, the promotion may be missing a few key components come the May date.
However, other WEC fan-favorites should be prepared to fight on the May card, including Mike Thomas Brown, Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone, and perhaps even WEC lightweight champion Benson Henderson.
If the promotion moves forward with a PPV set for this May, be on the lookout for some huge match ups and big announcements, Maniacs. Stay tuned to MMAmania.com as this card begins to come together over the coming weeks.
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ill buy it
i just dont think many other people will, but i know if the wec is gonna put on a ppv it is gonna be the most stacked fight card they can possably put on, and faber vs aldo is fight of a lifetime material, im sure it will be an amazing event, so i will put up the dough, and am sure it will be worth every penny, but i do think it is a bad idea to make it cost as much as a ufc.
Boooooo!!
This will be an event I will be skipping! How can they justify charging $45(which I guarantee is not in HD) for there 1st ppv? They should have taken a page out of strikeforce’s book and offered for $25, which is about the right price for such an event IMO. This is ricockulous, I mean really Zuffa do you expect us to spend $180 a month on MMA? Way to look out for the fans. Jerks
by Blood,bath and beyond on Jan 31, 2010 5:51 PM EST via mobile reply actions
yep...not payin for it...already spend enough on the UFC
Fedor once bet NASA he could survive re-entry without a spacesuit.
On July 19th, 1999, a naked Fedor re-entered the earth's atmosphere, streaking over 14 states and reaching a temperature of 3000 degrees. An embarrassed NASA publically claimed it was a meteor, and still owes him a beer.
Zuffa can F off with these PPV's
No event that WEC can come up with(more than once) is worth money to me. It’s just not.
This space for rent. Wanna bet on the Diaz fight? 01/28/10
me too mcarthur..
it hurts when i get dinged for 2 ppv’s on one bill..when they are close together..i would love to see this fight..but i could not pay for it..i think wec is very exciting to watch, but free is the right price..
NOT A CHANCE IN HELL WILL I PAY FOR THIS!
I just hope I haven’t got a couple beers in me come fight night tho. I just might get tempted to order if I nothing else is happening :( I should call my cable company now and make sure im banned from ordering it.
I do a lot of jacking off, ya know, because I don’t get no women, so these arms are, like, humongously big. See it’s workout, and it’s pleasure.._" Charles Bennett
"He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day and looks like a ***** today." -Tank Abbott.
i would buy this wec event over ufc 109
i think that every single wec event is explosive, those dudes just bring it no matter who is on the card. there have been some ufc events where i have been pretty disappointed at the end. i do think 45 is a little high though for their first ppv, it will be interesting to see how many people buy it and how many bars actually show it.
If the PPV featured:
Aldo/Faber
Henderson/Cerrone 2
Bowles/Torres 2
And a couple good contender bouts, I’d pay $40.00 bucks to see it.
Problem is, that’s pretty much a one-shot deal. The WEC can keep coming up with good fights, but not consistent PPV-drawing fights. And they can’t be charging the same as UFC PPVs with the low level of exposure the WEC has garnered.
This could be the move that sinks the WEC’s ship. If they can remain viable and turn a profit without taking this step, they should scrap this plan and continue trying to build their product through cable television. I see short-term cash and long-term failure for Reed Harris here.
"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once."
Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37)
by Jeremyjackson on Feb 1, 2010 1:30 AM EST up reply actions
no way
they end up charging that much. i don’t think dana would want the WEC ppv’s to be considered equal to UFC. i may be in the minority but WEC pretty much bores the shit out of me anyways.
Your deff in the minority if the WEC bores the shit out of you.
Lots of great fighters and exiting fights!! Aldo, faber, brown, cowboy, bowls, torres etc…I cant see how those fighters can bore you.
Having said that im not paying 45$ for a wec card… if they wanna do PPV’s they gotta make it reasonable like 25-30$
by ItsNormlToSmokePot on Jan 31, 2010 10:09 PM EST up reply actions
Who Knew
I can’t argue with the success of zuffa. Who knew the WEC was getting #‘s to warrant PPV. Interesting that they would use TUF to bring interest to UFC and not do the same with the midgets? I would think that the market is too saturated with product and riddled with unemployment to make this fly. I am no expert, but the target bracket for MMA is 18 – 35, I’m thinking this bracket can’t handle 2 PPV ’s a month and will have to choose. This just stinks of greed..
by TapedUpPair on Jan 31, 2010 6:19 PM EST via mobile reply actions
my thoughts too. I don’t see a lot of PPV buys for this personally and I think it could be Zuffa’s way of testing the waters before they liquidate the WEC and take everyone over to the UFC.
I am a Michigan Web Designer
by helloGreenStar on Jan 31, 2010 7:21 PM EST up reply actions
eff that
i don’t want the little UFC time we get to be filled with skinny ass little guys. i can’t stand those divisions.
it would be smart for the ufc
More exiting fighters to help stack the cards!! I hate when people bitch about shitty cards, even though there all not equal i for the most part there doing there best with what they got… if they added 145 and 135 they could really put on alot more really good cards!!!
avalonzero, what does them being skinny have to do with anything?? Alot of times the 135 and 145lb guys put on more exiting technical fights than the bigger weight classes. some of the best fights ive seen were in the smaller weight classes.and not just in the wec but in japan the also ahve alot of really exiting fighters.
Go watch hideo tokoro vs abel cullum and tell me that isn’t exiting!!
by ItsNormlToSmokePot on Jan 31, 2010 10:26 PM EST up reply actions
Ill buy it! throw in Cerrone vs Henderson 2 also.. Swanson vs Brown or Swanson Pulver 2
that will stack the card and id be down! 45 bucks that card will be sick! make it happen! Faber v Aldo. Cerrone v Henderson Swanson v Brown
by casale4rmpsca on Jan 31, 2010 7:04 PM EST via mobile reply actions
I don't know about $44.95
Maybe $24.95 or $29.99 or something in that range and I’ll buy it.
Confucius says:
"Baseball is wrong: man with four balls cannot walk."
my thoughts exactly
25 is perfect for this, they attract fans at first and seeing how it goes elevate the price in the next years or so.
by Phenomenal Angel on Jan 31, 2010 7:40 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Agreed, $45 is way too much to charge
I won’t be buying this, especially at the same price as a UFC PPV! Harris has got to be stupid if he thinks the fans will shell out $45 for something they have been getting for free on cable. Hey, I enjoy the WEC events and always watch them on VS, but a WEC PPV is going to be a flop. Hopefully after it flops, they will dissolve the WEC and move all the fighters over to the UFC—the UFC needs 2 more weight classes anyway.
There are no such things as lesbians, just women who have not yet met Chuck Norris
terrible for the fighters
these guys in the WEC owe most of their success to exposure by the masses. Less eyeballs watching your product is never a good business model. Faber is not the draw he was a year ago. Aldo is mostly an unknown by the chief demographic. Zuffa should look at what has happened recently with Podcasts. Ricky Gervais had the #1 podcast on Itunes so he started charging people for it. Numbers fell harder than a mexican space shuttle. This has bad economic thinking written all over it.
Poyznus.com
by David St. Martin on Jan 31, 2010 7:42 PM EST reply actions
Aldo
Should see how well he competes at lightweight because he could possibly do very well in the UFC
yup
I wanna see him there also but I much rather see him clean out the division first, imo he’s only taken out 2 top 10ish 145ers.
by Phenomenal Angel on Jan 31, 2010 8:43 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
I'm down for the Mayweather & Machida fights
Sorry I guess I’ll skip this one and watch it later on youtube. May is a bad debut for WEC PPV
Pay-per-view huh?
Yeah good luck with that. Nobody’s gonna pay money to see this when we’re already forking over $55 per month for hi-def UFC. It ain’t happining buddy. Kiss my ass.
I got 5 on it.......
And that’s about it
by Blood,bath and beyond on Feb 1, 2010 7:45 AM EST via mobile reply actions
As Fans of mma we should just boycott it as a whole...
I spend the $60 a month for my Hi-Def Fios ppv. of the UFC’s. Then they charge $2 a piece for each undercard on UFC.com. I pay $120 for my cable bundle (I got Fios because it was one of the first to carry Versus and HDNET, because of the WEC and all the Japanese cards. That is a $200 bill before adding anymore ppv’s and sometimes two UFC cards end up falling on to the same billing cycle, which is $250 without adding the WEC. I like the WEC, love the WEC, but there is only a handfull of fighters worthy of a $50 PPV. Considering 2 of them (Torres and Bowles are already booked for March) it only leaves just a few of them left for this misadventure. Brown doesn’t have any real comp. for this card, and Henderson vs. Cerrone could make it worthy of a $25 ppv but that is really it. $50 for fighters who only have a handful of fights is not exactly the best money spent. IF nobody orders this ppv and it totaly fails and bombs in its numbers department they hopefully will never attempt to do ppv events. We as consumers have that power. Don’t pay for it and they will be forced to listen to what we have to say.
monkey, don't forget to go and make your picks for 109
Fedor once bet NASA he could survive re-entry without a spacesuit.
On July 19th, 1999, a naked Fedor re-entered the earth's atmosphere, streaking over 14 states and reaching a temperature of 3000 degrees. An embarrassed NASA publically claimed it was a meteor, and still owes him a beer.
Great idea, I'm all for a WEC PPV boycott
There are no such things as lesbians, just women who have not yet met Chuck Norris
Not surprised
I knew this was coming. Damn, I don’t want to spend anymore on MMA but as a fan, it’s tough not to. The one good thing that probably comes out of it though, is maybe these WEC fighters start making some decent money. I think they were probably limited by having the Versus free views for the public.
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