Memories from the WEC

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Jeff Sherwood: The city of Lemoore, Calif., is mostly military, housing the Navy’s entire west coast fighter-attack capability. In June 2001, it got a different kind of fighting profile when the local Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino partnered with Reed Harris and Scott Adams to launch World Extreme Cagefighting.

The first ever WEC poster had a familiar face on it.

“Chuck [Liddell] was supposed to headline the first show. He was coming off the Randleman win. I guess Zuffa at that point realized what they had, a cease and desist letter came in. A bit of ironic foreshadowing,” former Tachi entertainment director Christian Printup told me when I called him for this piece.

“There are probably a few posters still out there somewhere that we were not able to destroy,” Adams added.

I drove from Huntington Beach to what seemed like the middle of nowhere to watch a main event between Dan Severn and Travis Fulton. If you told me WEC would go on to become one of the most important parts of MMA over the next decade, and that I’d move to Lemoore two years later, I would have told you that you were crazy.

The event took it to another level when they got Frank Shamrock to come out of retirement. He had developed relationships in the entertainment industry after his retirement, and he was going to use his name and connections to help them run a successful pay-per-view.

He was scheduled to fight Ricardo Almeida at WEC 4 at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. He even got a $25,000 advance. Then, he broke his leg in training, throwing a kick at Bob Cook. Shamrock instead wound up facing Bryan Pardoe at WEC 6 in Lemoore.

“I thought, ‘I can’t fight in Lemoore,’” Shamrock told me. “But I felt I had to make it right, so I did.”

I remember how intense the staredown was; it looked like both guys’ muscles were going to explode. When Pardoe landed his right hand to start the fight, I swear all the oxygen in the tent (yes, it was in a tent) disappeared. Then, Shamrock calmly pulled off an armbar in less than two minutes, instantly propelling the WEC brand.

“After that show, fighting in the WEC was a much bigger deal for guys,” Printup told me.

But even with Frank’s profile, so much was owed to the local Native American fighters -- after all, this was at the Tachi. At WEC 1, a local tough, Tony Alanis, was instrumental in bringing out the Tachi crowd and getting others into training. “The Tachi Kid” Poppies Martinez… the locals went crazy when he fought.

WEC 9 in January 2004 took the promotion to another level. Nowadays, we all know HDNet is a major MMA backer, but back then, MMA was barely on TV, and HDNet was a new novelty.

“HDNet was a game changer for the WEC,” Scott Adams told me when we reminisced over the card.

It was a crazy event. Mike Swick and Chris Leben, before the TUF days, went to war. I saw Olaf Alfonso’s crooked nose get even worse in his famous battle with John Polakowski. I remember thinking I was going to run out of space on my memory card shooting pictures of the fight because there was so much action.

Later, I was in awe, in shock, as I watched Joe Riggs destroy Alex Stiebling. I really thought Alex might die in the cage, but bloody as he was, he came back to submit his opponent. Four months later, he did the exact same thing to Tim McKenzie after another scary beating. Alex Steibling was the real life Rocky for those two fights.

Most MMA fans would never have had the WEC 10 fight between Mike Serr and Rafael Real on their radar, but it was huge for locals. There wasn’t an empty seat; I’ve never felt so much pressure in a venue and it was just two local tough guys fighting. It was the first time I realized you didn’t need marquee names if the matchmaking is done right.

A pudgy 22-year-old Gilbert Melendez became the first WEC lightweight champ that night. I saw his blue-and-yellow flower shorts, and laughed with my buddy that he’d forgotten his fight shorts at home. Even today, when I see him with the Strikeforce title, I think of those shorts.

WEC 13 brought me back to the old school. I was hooked at UFC 1, so of course I would be pumped about a heavyweight tournament.

It was sloppy at times, but did I love it? Heck yes. The smallest man, a kid named Brandon Vera, ended up taking the whole thing.

It was always a treat to see -- and hear -- “Mr. International” Shonie Carter fight. He had a speech after every fight, inviting all the women to come to his afterparty, before afterparties were even cool.

That night, he fought a Brazilian kid, Jorge Oliveira, who was supposedly making his debut. I remember Shonie walking to me after the fight, beaten and bloody, and saying, “Hey Sherdog: first fight my ass!”

I was excited for weeks before WEC 17 because of their four-man light heavyweight tournament, which was set to feature Scott Smith, Tim McKenzie, Justin Levens, Oliveira and alternates Vernon White and Alex Stiebling. Then, injuries struck, and somehow Tait Fletcher ended up in the finals against Scott Smith. It all set up a major fight with Smith and Levens three months later.

“The Smith- Levens fight on the next show, that was special. You could see that the winner was going to get a big call-up,” Printup recalled.

It was the kind of fight Smith has become known for: in less than two minutes, he got seriously hurt, only to come back and knock Levens out. It only lasted 1:58.

Then, “The California Kid” came to town.

I had watched every one of Urijah Faber’s fights prior to WEC except one. I knew he’d be something special. The night he took the belt from Cole Escovedo, it really surprised a lot of people, but I knew this kid had championship potential.

On a sidenote, that was the same night that Rob McCullough nearly killed poor Olaf, after Jon Schorle went to fetch his mouthpiece.

When we showed up for WEC 24 in October 2006, we had no idea this would be the last local WEC show, before they teamed up with Zuffa. When I talked to Adams about it, he told me a great story about the main event -- a lightweight title fight between Hermes Franca and a 21-year-old Nate Diaz -- that he’d never told anyone on the record before.

“I made a little mistake,” he laughed. “I told Franca’s camp it was going to be three five-minute rounds, and told Diaz’s camp it would be five five-minute rounds. I had Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta and Kirk Hendrick coming to see the show, then I made a mistake and my main event was about to fall apart.

Adams said both sides refused to budge on what they’d agreed to. Eventually, Cesar Gracie told him to talk to Nick Diaz one-on-one. Nick told him that Nate would fight three five-minute rounds if he got a flat purse of $12,000. Adams wrote him the check.

“I didn’t tell anyone, not even Reed,” Adams remembered. “He called me on it a month or so later.”

I still always picture WEC here at The Palace. For a smaller organization to be able to put together great fighters and fights in a small town like Lemoore is a great feat. I made some special friends during this time and covering WEC made some previous friendships even stronger. My good friend, the late Ryan Bennett, was huge in WEC’s success, and I was able to spend more time with him because of those shows. I’ll never forget that.

Josh Rosenthal might do main events in the UFC now, but he used to have to listen to me complain about his refereeing all the time (hey, he asked). But, to see that Josh took the criticism to heart and worked hard to get better at an important, but thankless job is something special.

I can’t forget all the kids who fought there, just trying to make a name for themselves. I remember watching Levens mature as a fighter; his battles with Oliveira and Smith were a treat to anyone. Though it’s still hard to reconcile the circumstances of his death, I still smile when I think of getting a call from him, hearing him crying on the phone, telling me he had made it to the UFC.

Lemoore is my home now; it makes me happy I made that four-hour drive to WEC 1 almost 10 years ago. But, as I pack my bags to head out to Glendale for the final WEC, I just can’t help but feel sad, knowing it can’t be replaced.