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<\/p>\nWhen it was over, one fighter would remember only disappointment and heartbreak. Another would wonder if he might have just accidentally killed a man. Yet another would regard the night as one of the lowest and darkest moments of a long career, the point at which he\u2019d just about concluded that he and professional fighting had nothing left to offer one another.<\/p>\n
It was 15 years ago today \u2014 Dec. 16, 2010 \u2014 that World Extreme Cagefighting (better known as the WEC) held its final event. A bittersweet farewell, in many ways.<\/p>\n
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On one hand, WEC 53 would later be remembered as one of the promotion\u2019s best and most-watched shows, drawing well over a half-million viewers on the Versus Network. Of the four fighters featured in the main and co-main event, three went on to be UFC champions. The headlining bout also produced an all-time great MMA highlight \u2014 known now simply as \u201cThe Showtime Kick\u201d \u2014 that left the crowd of 6,300 simultaneously stunned and thrilled and confused.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, it marked the end of the line for a fight promotion that was beloved by hardcores and largely ignored by almost everyone else.<\/p>\n
WEC started in 2001 as a regional fight promotion in Northern California, running most of its early events out of the Tachi Palace in Lemoore, just outside Fresno. But in 2006, it was purchased by Zuffa, the parent company of the UFC, and change inevitably followed.<\/p>\n
The most significant of those changes was to transform it into Zuffa\u2019s exclusive home for smaller fighters. At the time, the lightest weight class featured in the UFC was the 155-pound lightweight division. The WEC, however, included featherweights (145 pounds) and bantamweights (135 pounds), in addition to lightweights. It served as a test case for Zuffa, which seemed skeptical that audiences would ever show up in profitable numbers to see the smallest fighters in the sport.<\/p>\n
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At times, they did. During his time as WEC featherweight champion, Urijah Faber was a genuine star for the organization. Other fighters like Jose Aldo, Dominick Cruz and Donald \u201cCowboy\u201d Cerrone would later become stars in the UFC. But as 2010 wound down, Zuffa was ready to consolidate. The WEC roster \u2014 some of it, anyway, though no one was entirely sure how much of it \u2014 would be absorbed into the UFC, creating two new weight classes with two new champions.<\/p>\n
The final order of business before the WEC could roll up its blue canvas and disassemble its smaller, cozier cage once and for all? An event to end the year with a bang and send the organization itself out on a high note. WEC 53 accomplished that. But it also provided a glimpse of the future, in more ways than one.<\/p>\n
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Dec. 16, 2010: Scott Jorgensen fights Dominck Cruz in for the WEC bantamweight title inside the famed blue cage.<\/p>\n
(Christian Petersen via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Of all the things to stick in his memory, it\u2019s the online fan poll that sticks out for Benson Henderson. A quaint idea by today\u2019s standards. The kind of thing your grandmother might post about on Facebook. But in 2010, these tools of the information superhighway were still novel enough to be interesting \u2014 especially for those with a stake in the outcome.<\/p>\n
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The pitch was that, for its final event, WEC would let fans choose the location. The initial list offered 30 different cities as options. Before long two frontrunners emerged: Phoenix and Milwaukee. Henderson, the reigning WEC lightweight champion, had adopted Phoenix as his home. Anthony Pettis, the looming challenger for his belt, was a well-known Milwaukee guy. And since the contest allowed each user to vote as many as 10 times per day, things snowballed quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember every day for a month, or probably even longer than that, people were sending me these screenshots and pictures of how many times they voted for the card to come to Phoenix,\u201d Henderson told Uncrowned. \u201cI know a ton of Wisconsin people were voting to get it there, but I had friends, family, old college roommates \u2014 everybody I knew, basically \u2014 sending me screenshots of them voting for it over and over every single day until Phoenix won.\u201d<\/p>\n
It would be the first time in Zuffa history that the company promoted an event in Arizona, but the fan vote was just one of several things that made the final event feel different.<\/p>\n
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Dave Sholler, the WEC\u2019s public relations manager at the time, remembers heading into Phoenix that week with the palpable sense that everyone involved had something to prove. The promotion had spent the past couple years trying, with mixed results, to get out of the UFC\u2019s colossal shadow. Many fans still regarded it as a little brother organization, filled with fighters either not quite big enough or good enough for the UFC. It didn\u2019t seem to matter how many memorable fights the organization put on. It was the perception that stuck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember that show just having a different energy in the building,\u201d Sholler said. \u201cWe had a chip on our shoulders, and we took pride in that. The fighters, the staff, everybody on the team. I remember [WEC co-founder] Reed Harris and I would go to every city we visited with a WEC duffel bag full of VHS highlight reels and press kits. It was hard in 2009 to get people to cover us in local markets like Youngstown, Ohio, or San Antonio or Edmonton. We were grinders. We had this sense of satisfaction and pride at having built this challenger brand with a cult following, but now it was ending.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sholler was one of the lucky ones. He\u2019d already been told that, when the WEC was absorbed by the UFC, he\u2019d still have a job. In fact, he was getting something of a promotion. The end of the WEC meant getting called up to the big leagues, and just as the UFC was really taking off as a mainstream sports brand.<\/p>\n
But not everyone had such job security as the fans filtered into Jobing.com Arena that night. Many of the fighters on the WEC roster had only been told that the UFC would be taking some of them. Outside of the reigning champions and a couple top draws, it wasn\u2019t at all clear who would make the cut. For many, that final event offered one last chance to make a strong case for themselves.<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s how it was for Danny Downes, a lightweight who came into that event on the heels of a submission loss earlier that year. He\u2019d been matched up against Zhang Tiequan, \u201cThe Mongolian Wolf,\u201d an undefeated Chinese fighter who the parent company Zuffa seemed to be hoping would aid future international expansion efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll always remember standing there behind the curtain before that fight,\u201d Downes said. \u201cI know my career\u2019s on the line. I know that if I go 0-2 I\u2019m not getting brought over to the UFC, and that was my whole focus. I wanted to fight in the UFC. Then Reed Harris comes by and he\u2019s like, \u2018Man, all the fights have been good \u2026 so far.\u2019 And he just looks at me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Dec. 16, 2010: Danny Downes fights Tiequan Zhang en route to a decision win.<\/p>\n
(Christian Petersen via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
This was about the time when Downes started to get the distinct impression that perhaps he hadn\u2019t been booked in this fight because the promoters thought he\u2019d win. (Harris did not respond to requests for comment.) And the thing is, the fights had been good. Of the first six bouts at WEC 53, five ended with first-round finishes, some of them quite dramatically. Downes felt the pressure to keep that going, but also to keep his career viable in the process.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe other thing [Harris] did was say something like, \u2018Hey there\u2019s 80 million people watching in China right now. Anyway, have fun.\u2019 And then, boom \u2014 right after he said that my walkout music starts playing,\u201d Downes said. \u201cI was like, well, here we go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Downes proved up to the task, handing Zhang his first professional loss via unanimous decision. Both would go on to get their shots in the UFC. But others weren\u2019t so lucky.<\/p>\n
For former WEC lightweight champion Jamie Varner, the end of the WEC seemed like it might also be the end of his fighting career. At one point, he\u2019d been a vocal proponent for the organization, hyping it up to anyone who\u2019d listen. But a series of events had made him feel abandoned and discarded by the WEC. At the same time, he felt his own passion for the sport draining away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had lost my heart, my will to fight,\u201d Varner said. \u201cEven my training was s***. My mind wasn\u2019t in it. I hated fighting. Hated it. I was just doing it to get a paycheck. I was pretty banged up and injured, so I probably shouldn\u2019t have even fought on that Phoenix card, but I hadn\u2019t fought in Arizona in years. That was my backyard. Still I think I only trained for like three weeks for that fight. I was just lost and trying to find myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
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That night Varner faced Shane Roller, a decorated wrestler who\u2019d been essentially recruited into MMA by Team Takedown, a well-funded effort to turn collegiate wrestlers into top MMA fighters. Varner lost the fight via first-round submission, feeling the entire time like he was just going through the motions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t really want to fight, but I still ended up dropping him with a left hook, which is crazy,\u201d Varner said. \u201cThen I went for the finish and I slipped. He ended up taking my back and I got choked, which just felt like a sign from God that I was just f***ing done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elsewhere on the undercard, bantamweight Eddie Wineland took on Ken Stone, a former college wrestler with a solid 9-1 record as a pro. Wineland, like many others, didn\u2019t know for sure if he\u2019d be picked up by the UFC once the night was over. He felt he needed to make an impression.<\/p>\n
So when Stone jumped guard in search of a guillotine choke, Wineland calmly carried him over to the fence to rest his body weight against the chainlink. Once Stone made the mistake of releasing the choke without releasing the guard, Wineland snapped him down to the mat in a vicious slam.<\/p>\n
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The dull thud of Stone\u2019s body and head hitting the mat reverberated through the entire arena, followed by the guttural groan of nearly 7,000 people who seemed to be questioning their decision to seek out sanctioned violence on this particular evening.<\/p>\n
Wineland went directly into his celebration, jogging around the cage and basking in the victory. Stone didn\u2019t move. He lay sprawled out on his back, arms out at his sides, entirely unresponsive. He stayed that way for a long time. Long enough, in fact, for Wineland to fear the worst.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat one really left me unnerved,\u201d Wineland said. \u201cBecause he just wasn\u2019t moving at all. Yes, we’re in a sport that\u2019s violent, but you’re not there maliciously to hurt somebody. You’re there for the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
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By the time he got back to the locker room, the mood around Wineland had darkened. No one was celebrating the first-round knockout. Not really. They should have been high-fiving and hugging, looking ahead to the after-party and the UFC contract that would follow. But it was hard to work up the enthusiasm as they watched Stone\u2019s limp body get loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled out of the arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was completely unconscious for the entire time they were taking him out of there,\u201d Wineland said. \u201cSo it kind of sucked back in the locker room. I\u2019m thinking, ‘Did I really hurt this guy? Did I kill this guy? What then?’ Finally, someone came in and told us that he was in the ambulance and he\u2019d started moving again and he seemed like he was going to be OK. Then I could breathe again. But after that, it was hard to really get excited again. It was kind of like, ‘Now what?’\u201d<\/p>\n
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Dec. 16, 2010: Few knockouts in UFC\/WEC history have ever had a scarier immediate aftermath than Eddie Wineland’s slam of Ken Stone.<\/p>\n
(Josh Hedges via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The top two bouts of the evening were for big stakes. In the co-main event, WEC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz defended his belt against Scott Jorgensen, a former Boise State wrestler on a five-fight win streak. The fight would determine more than just who went down in history as the last 135-pound champion in the WEC. Whoever won would also become the first UFC bantamweight champion, earning an instant promotion when the UFC adopted this new weight class.<\/p>\n
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All week, Cruz had been the picture of supreme confidence. Jorgensen had no chance against him, he told reporters at the pre-fight media day. The speed and the style, it would all be too much for him, Cruz said. When informed that Jorgensen\u2019s friend and training partner Joe Warren had promised that a big surprise was in store for the champ, Cruz just smiled.<\/p>\n
It turned out he had good reason to. Once the bout began, Jorgensen looked like a man trying to fight a swarm of bees. Cruz darted in and out, stinging with him lead rights and then baffling him with knee-tap takedowns. It all looked the same on the way in, like a skilled relief pitcher whose arm movement seems identical whether he\u2019s throwing a curveball or straight gas.<\/p>\n
As the one-sided fight wore on, it was Warren\u2019s voice from Jorgensen\u2019s corner that rang out in the building.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut your hands on him, Scotty!\u201d Warren shouted over and over again. But Jorgensen couldn\u2019t find Cruz, much less touch him. Watching Cruz pile up rounds with his mongoose-like attacks felt like watching an artist develop an entirely new style of painting. Jorgensen, like most of Cruz\u2019s opponents back then, was still looking for his brush.<\/p>\n
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Yet all these years later, it\u2019s the main event of WEC 53 people remember best, even if they also tend to remember one part of it incorrectly. In their minds, that incredible kick Pettis landed in the final minute of the final round \u2014 jumping off the chainlink cage with one foot, then swinging it around to land a kick to Henderson\u2019s head, like something out of a Jackie Chan movie \u2014 was the finishing blow. They don\u2019t always remember that, while he was dropped as much by the surprise of the move as the force of the strike, Henderson survived and made it to the scorecards.<\/p>\n
When he thinks back on it now, Henderson can\u2019t help but think about all the good moments he had in that fight before the Showtime kick put him in permanent highlight territory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rest of the fight, all of those rounds could have went my way,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that kick was such a dramatic moment. I could have won every moment up until then and that kick would probably still have won him the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The reaction in the arena when that kick landed was both baffled and awestruck. At first, people didn\u2019t fully realize what they\u2019d seen, in part because no one had ever seen it before. It all happened so fast. It was so different. Not until the replay aired in the arena while the judges\u2019 scores were being tallied did people fully appreciate what Pettis had done.<\/p>\n
As the decision victory was announced, Pettis glowed with a new aura. He\u2019d go charging into the UFC as a somebody now, rather than just another lightweight folded into an already crowded division.<\/p>\n
But for Henderson, it was a crushing loss. He showed up to the post-fight press conference, dutifully answering questions and playing the role of the good sportsman. But in between answers his face would change, grimacing in a mighty effort to fight off tears, at least while reporters were there to see them. It felt like you could almost see into his brain as he replayed those last couple minutes of the fight and processed all that it would mean for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just remember being so disappointed,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cBeing home in Arizona, having my family and friends there. My teammates, their girlfriends and wives, everybody doing all that voting all day long to bring the show there. I felt like I let them all down.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Also backstage, Varner was finding a strange silver lining in what had otherwise been one of the lowest moments of his professional life. He exited the fight with Roller with a cut on his eyelid, requiring stitches. The doctor offered him two choices: Have it closed at the hospital, which would likely require some waiting around, or tough it out right there and get it over with.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me the cut was too close to my eye for him to really give me any lidocaine or numbing agent, so I\u2019d just have to deal with the pain as he stitched it up,\u201d Varner said. \u201cI was like, f*** it, let\u2019s do it. I was so defeated and just broken. But then the doctor, his name is Dr. Ara Feinstein, we got to talking and we became really good friends after that. He actually wrote me a letter of recommendation years later to help me get into medical sales. We stayed in touch, would hang out together. And all of that would have probably never happened without that fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Dec. 16, 2010: Jamie Varner punches Shane Roller at WEC 53.<\/p>\n
(Josh Hedges via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Though he thought his career was over, Varner later ended up fighting in the UFC. So did Downes, which at least gave him the satisfaction of being able to say that he got to the sport\u2019s biggest stage. That was a point of pride for so many of the WEC fighters, but especially the lightweights. Theirs was a weight class the UFC already had, which made it all the more frustrating to explain to people how it was they came to fight for the UFC\u2019s parent company but not the UFC itself.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt was like when you were a kid and you needed an extra controller for your Super Nintendo or something, and you ended up with the off-brand stuff,\u201d Downes said. \u201cLike, why do I have to get stuck with the Mad Cats controller? It sucks. That\u2019s how it felt trying to explain it to people. We were still good fighters even if we weren\u2019t hanging out with Chuck Liddell or whatever. But people looked at it like the minor leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Sholler, the ending left a bittersweet taste. He was moving on and moving up in his public relations career, eventually finding his way from the UFC to Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment, where he represents teams like the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils. But there was just something about those early days, learning the ropes and pushing the gospel of the WEC to skeptical newspaper editors and local TV news directors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think back to some of the coolest moments in my career, working in the NFL, the NBA, the NFL, but some of my fondest memories are still the WEC,\u201d Sholler said. \u201cThat\u2019s where I learned about marketing and promoting athletes. That\u2019s where I learned to sell tickets. I\u2019d be lying if I said I didn\u2019t shed a tear after that last press conference.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wouldn\u2019t have been the only one. As they tore the WEC cage down and turned out the lights in Phoenix that night, there were many people who had only just begun to realize all that was truly going away. And it would never come again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it was over, one fighter would remember only disappointment and heartbreak. Another would wonder if he might…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[9898,80740,49,48,152031,30470,152032,641,152034,152029,638,749,1528,152035,152030,82,640,152033],"class_list":{"0":"post-349772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-anthony-pettis","9":"tag-benson-henderson","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-danny-downes","13":"tag-dominick-cruz","14":"tag-eddie-wineland","15":"tag-fighting","16":"tag-final-event","17":"tag-jamie-varner","18":"tag-mma","19":"tag-new-jersey-devils","20":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","21":"tag-reed-harris","22":"tag-scott-jorgensen","23":"tag-sports","24":"tag-ufc","25":"tag-wec-lightweight-champion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}