WEC's Road Ahead

The clattering thud you’ll hear shortly after the conclusion of Wednesday’s World Extreme Cagefighting 36 card is likely to be the deposit of the organization’s middleweight championship belt -- to be contested by Chael Sonnen against Paulo Filho -- into the nearest garbage can.

In September, the promotion announced that it would be euthanizing both its 185-pound and 205-pound classes in an effort to focus more on the trimmer weight divisions, a charge headed by the personable (and generously chinned) Urijah Faber.

Should you be disappointed? While it’s true that the heavier slots were flimsy -- it’s unlikely Brian Stann or Steve Cantwell would survive even a UFC Fight Night -- the limited talent pool actually served a good purpose. By grooming athletes with clear potential, Zuffa -- which owns both the WEC and its bigger, substantially meaner brother, the UFC -- was able to control its own feeder system.

Perfect example? Jake Rosholt, a 4-0, four-time Division-1 wrestler who is predicted to be hell on wheels in another couple of years, is a ready-made prospect for the WEC’s competitive, but not suffocating, middleweight division. (Champion Filho was overqualified to begin with.) He could improve at his own pace; get pushed without getting pushed over.

In the UFC, where there’s no such thing as the shallow end of the pool, the learning curve is going to be steep.

It’s a shame for guys like Rosholt, and it’s a roll of the dice for the promotion itself, which is obviously banking on Faber to stir up attention for his sub-division of prizefighting. Faber is certainly a capable athlete -- too capable, having disposed of several challengers to his 145-pound title and left with only two compelling and attention-nabbing bouts remaining in the class: a rematch with Jens Pulver and an unlikely showdown with Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto.

To that end, Faber has made noise recently about moving up to 155 pounds if the situation warrants, but it’s never sound business to try and cannibalize one champion against another. And if he does, what becomes of the WEC, which ostensibly exists solely for promoting both Faber and 135-pound titleholder Miguel Torres?

Faber’s drawing power is tenuous at best: Though his fight with Pulver in June drew a record number of eyes to cable station Versus, his opponent had been seen on weekly Spike television not long before under the UFC’s umbrella. There’s talk of him headlining a WEC pay-per-view in ’09, but without a similar hook -- a notable lightweight dropping a class -- it’s unlikely Faber would compel an already-stressed market to shell out the cash, even with the guaranteed coaxial hype brought on by Versus.

That leaves the WEC with a high-profile headliner that doesn’t exactly have an endless line of opposition in front of him. Challenges from underwhelming contenders are fine for quarterly free television, but as a premium event, it lacks.

To fuel Faber’s career, it seems inevitable that the promotion will have to begin signing more international talent and convince a handful of lightweight contenders to cut out the carbs -- even if it were for a one-off superfight. (Frankie Edgar, for one, is slight for that weight.)

Eroding contenders isn’t a problem unique to Faber: If and when Georges St. Pierre gets past B.J. Penn and Thiago Alves, he’s more or less cleaned out the welterweight division. The difference is, St. Pierre isn’t expected to power an entire promotion in the same way Faber is.

If all this reads like a Chicken Little monologue, it shouldn’t. The WEC has consistently been one of the most well-produced and entertaining fight programs on the dial. Lighter athletes who don’t need to feed 250 pounds of muscle can go for endless rounds; if anything, the excision of the bulkier classes just sheds some of the obligations to put on largely irrelevant fights. (Filho is already rematching Sonnen; Stann was set to face Cantwell again before the fight was scratched.)

Maybe it’s a good thing: With Faber’s skills towering over the others in his class, he could be embraced by a mainstream media desperate for an American MMA figurehead to hang their support on.

As for the belts in the waste bin? If it brings us another step closer to having one true world champion in each weight class, Godspeed.

And toss the WAMMA gold in there while you’re at it.

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