The Weekly Wrap: Dec. 11 - Dec. 17

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Wild WEC Curtain Call

The consistent theme throughout the final World Extreme Cagefighting event on Dec. 16 was that the promotion’s fighters represent the future of the UFC as the two leagues merge in 2011.

Hard to argue, but Anthony Pettis took it a step further, springing off the cage wall in the fifth round and landing a supernatural head kick toward taking the WEC lightweight title from Benson Henderson. Combine that with perfect movement and timing from Dominick Cruz in becoming the UFC’s first bantamweight champion, and these fighters did not just look like the future. It looked they had arrived from it.

After nearly a decade in business, the curtain closed on the WEC before 6,348 fans at the Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Ariz. The show aired on Versus. The broadcast included select vintage WEC clips of names like Urijah Faber, Dan Severn, Shane Carwin, Chris Leben and Nate Diaz fighting in the California-bred promotion before it was acquired by Zuffa LLC in 2006. The broadcast framed the promotion’s folding into the UFC as evidence that featherweight and bantamweight fighters had made it in the sport.

Pettis took the WEC lightweight title from Henderson via unanimous decision; two judges gave him three of five rounds and one gave him four rounds. In a late bid for “Fight of the Year,” the two scrambled in manic ground exchanges, including a close rear-naked choke attempt by Henderson in the fourth.

Pettis, well ahead in the striking and forcing Henderson to shoot, landed the all-time-great kick in the closing seconds of the fight, flush to Henderson’s face. Pettis said trainer Duke Roufus promised to buy dinner for whichever of his fighters tried the experimental kick in a fight and claimed Henderson’s checking his kicks and interrupting his combinations compelled him to try the alternative approach. Word spread quickly, as Pettis’ name was trending Thursday night on Twitter, a rarity for a WEC fighter, and the shot made Friday morning’s SportsCenter, tagged “Incredible MMA Knockout” even though it was not a finish.

Pettis will face the winner of the Jan. 1 Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard fight to merge the two lightweight belts. Pettis and Henderson took home $10,000 bonuses for having the night’s best fight.

Cruz had a UFC belt strapped around his waist after he took five dominant rounds from Scott Jorgensen. The top bantamweight landed 243 strikes to Jorgensen’s 69 in the fight, according to Fight Metric, as Jorgensen had trouble cutting off the constantly moving champion and implementing his wrestling. When he did get takedowns, Cruz swiftly popped up. Cruz called out Urijah Faber, who was seated at ringside, after the fight and said he wants to coach opposite Faber on the next season of “The Ultimate Fighter.”

Also picking up wins at WEC 53 were Donald Cerrone (round-two triangle choke submission over Chris Horodecki), Kamal Shalorus (split decision over Bart Palaszewski), Daniel Downes (unanimous decision over Tie Quan Zhang), Shane Roller (first-round rear-naked choke submission over Jamie Varner), Brad Pickett (unanimous decision over Ivan Menjivar), Eddie Wineland (round-one slam KO over Ken Stone), Danny Castillo (round-one KO over Will Kerr), Yuri Alcantara (round-one KO over Ricardo Lamas) and Renan do Nascimento Mota Pegado (round-one rear-naked choke over Chris Cariaso).

Wineland won “Knockout of the Night.” Roller won the Best Submission bonus. Cerrone named Cole Miller as the first lightweight he would like to face in the UFC.

The UFC will broadcast four live events on Versus in 2011. Versus aired every WEC card since WEC 28, with the exception of the WEC 48 pay-per-view. The highest rating -- an average of 1.54 million viewers -- came for WEC 34 in June 2008, when Urijah Faber faced Jens Pulver.