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Make your predictions for fights on last ever WEC event
By Zach Arnold | December 16, 2010
Dark matches
- Bantamweights: Renan Barao vs. Chris Cariaso
- Lightweights: Ricardo Lamas vs. Yuri Alcantara
- Lightweights: Danny Castillo vs. Will Kerr
- Bantamweights: Eddie Wineland vs. Ken Stone
- Bantamweights: Brad Pickett vs. Ivan Menjivar
- Lightweights: Jamie Varner vs. Shane Roller
- Lightweights: Tiequan Zhang vs. Danny Downes
- Lightweights: Bart Palaszewski vs. Kamal Shalorus
Main card
- Lightweights: Donald Cerrone vs. Chris Horodecki
- WEC Bantamweight title match: Dominick Cruz vs. Scott Jorgensen
- WEC Lightweight title match: Ben Henderson vs. Anthony Pettis
Articles heading into the show
- Dave Meltzer (Yahoo Sports): WEC champions Ben Henderson & Dominick Cruz are headed for a sentimental evening Thursday night in Glendale
- John Morgan (MMA Junkie): Anthony Pettis embraces underdog role at WEC 53, confident he can shock the world
- Michael David Smith (MMA Fighting): Chris Horodecki should beat Donald Cerrone by decision
- Ken Pishna (MMA Weekly): Dominick Cruz Ready To Flip The Switch On Scott Jorgensen
- Sherdog: A tribute — memories from the WEC
- Spencer Kyte (Heavy): Ben Henderson is prepared for the next big thing
- Sherdog: Scott Jorgensen says that WEC will live on in UFC like PRIDE has
- Northwest Herald: Bart Palaszewski sees his dream to fight soon in UFC come true
- The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Anthony Pettis at a crucial point in his MMA career
- The Arizona Republic: Jobs, dreams on the line at WEC 53
- Josh Gross (ESPN): Dominick Cruz won’t be still, silent for Scott Jorgensen
TV time starts at 8 PM EST/5 PM PST on Versus with Molly Qerim and Ariel Helwani doing a preview show. The fights starts at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST. Then there will be a post-fight show on the network as well.
Topics: Media, MMA, WEC, Zach Arnold | 20 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Got my tickets for this event the day they went on sale.
SOOO looking forward to seeing this show, hope the crowd is fired up!
Congrats on going to the final WEC show man. It should be a good one.
Odd that there are zero Featherweight fights on this card. Anyway I expect Shalorus vs. Palazewski and either Varner vs. Roller or Tiequan Zhang vs. Downes to make the main card, although the latter seems more like a showcase fight for Zhang.
Just like the last WEC card, I wonder how many of these fights are going to turn into loser doesn’t make it to the UFC fights. Especially a lot of the Lightweight Fights.
I completely forgot about this show. With the WEC merging with the UFC, I forgot they had 1 more show. And there has been almost no hype for it as everybody has been concentrating on GSP/Koscheck 2.
Still an extremely important card. Get to find out who the 1st UFC Bantamweight Champion is as well as the next #1 for the Lightweight Title (and yes, I know it’s undeserving).
I for one am looking forward to some new blood in the UFC LW title hunt. The current group of contenders have all fought each other so often that it will be good to see someone new, even if they don’t particularly deserve it.
And if by some chance Henderson or Pettis wins the UFC belt…. It would create a bunhc of fun fights for a while.
I have to say, I’m a little disappointed that the last WEC event wasn’t hyped up just a *little* bit more at UFC 124 this past weekend.
I recall only seeing the one short promo during the fight card.
Oh well, I guess I’ll just to look forward to enjoying the show, regardless if it sells-out or not. I’d just like to see the WEC go out on a high note with a sell-out.
Won’t sell out (arena is too big) but I think its shaping up to be one of those classic WEC style cards of the last three years that jumps out and surprises people.
Will make for great TV.
Cruz gets away with squaring up and standing straight up in front of smaller, less active guys because, well, they are smaller and less active. Jorgenson isn’t one of those guys. Not only that, he has the wrestling ability and physical strength to control if the fight goes to the mat. Cruz there can only hope for submissions. I see that fight ending relatively quickly with a right hand to the head of Cruz before the third round even gets underway, and Patches becomes the new Bantamweight champ and overhyped 135lb fighter of the moment.
Horodecki fights like crap, is undersized, and will stand in front of Cerrone. If Cerrone loses, he should be cut immediately.
The fight to see who loses a UFC lightweight title fight mildly interests me. Henderson can stick in there through some strikes, get this to the mat where he has a huge advantage technically, and I think he ties up the limbs of Pettis and wins.
Only other fight I want to see is Menjivar/Pickett. Taking some years off rather than absorbing beatdowns you can’t recover from might have been a smart move. WAR MENJIVAR.
Cruz isn’t losing to a lesser version of benavidez and bowles.
I really hope menjivar-pickett gets broadcast.
It takes a high amount of overthinking to pick horodecki over cerrone.
Its not like he destroyed Bowles. Bowles broke his hand landing on Cruz and quit on his stool. He didn’t exactly destroy Benamidget either. In fact, he got tagged a few times. In my estimation, Jorgenson right now is better than either one and should plow through Cruz (as is customary for 135lb title changes).
Maybe you see something than I don’t, but I think your overestimating Jorgensen and underestimating both Benavidez and Cruz. As is MMA I could definately be wrong though. We’ll see.
I think Cruz gets plowed through when he fights Urijah.
Nice prediction. Spot on.
Thanks man.
Henderson, Cruz, & Cerrone. I would be surprised if I didn’t go 3-0 on this one.
Main event was awesome. I have to say is….what the
fuckwas up with that kick by Pettis in the fifth round? Jesus Christ, that was insane! The second it hits Youtube, I urge everyone who didn’t see the fight to check that out. He jumped at the cage, kicked off it, and landed a flying kick to Henderson, and landed the kick flush. Something straight out of a movie. I imagine a few Taekwondo schools will be receiving new students for a while…Overall, damn good fight card. And kudos to Henderson for not getting knocked out by that flying ninja kick.
I’m more curious what was up with the decision, i’m going to have to rewatch the fight again because to me he lost 3 of the 5 rounds and was losing the was one until the kick. Great fight, great card, but another shady decision puts a sour note on the night for me.
By any chance, do you write for MMA Junkie? Cause they didn’t score the fight correctly either.
2 Sherdog guys had it 48-47 for Pettis. The other had a draw. Meltzer had it 49-46 Pettis. BloodyElbow guy had it 48-47 Pettis.
Personally, I had it 48-47, but thought 1 round was close where it could have been 49-26 for Pettis.
No clue how anybody could have it for Henderson.
Can’t talk about how other sites scored the fight because I stopped paying attention to them years ago, because their scores many times didn’t add up to what I was watching.
Also there was nothing close about round 1 to give to Pettis in anyway, Ben also took round 2. Round 3 Pettis took but he lost 4, and until the kick he was losing 5. That became even clearer when I watched the replay, which just make me shake my head in disgust. Not only was Henderson robbed in his home town of the WEC title but also of getting a title shot that was criminal.
Naw, the decision was correct. I had it 48-47 Pettis. Rounds one and 4 for Henderson, 2,3, and 5 for Pettis. Close fight.