I didn't see a thread for this and since it's in a couple of days, thought I'd get it started.
This isn't my first MMA card live, but it's my first one in Las Vegas, and I'm pumped.
Nothing like scheduling a relative visit around some MMA cards.

MAIN CARD:
Donald Cerrone Vs. Ed Ratcliff
Anthony Njokuani Vs. Chris Horodecki
Joseph Benavidez Vs. Rani Yahya
Takeya Mizugaki Vs. Scott Jorgensen

PRELIMINARY MATCHES:
Bart Palaszewski Vs. Anthony Pettis
Muhsin Corbbrey Vs. Zack Micklewright
John Hosman Vs. Chad George
Courtney Buck Vs. Brandon Visher
Brad Pickett Vs. Kyle Dietz
Jameel Massouh Vs. Erik Koch

I probably would have gone to the Strikeforce card if San Jose wasn't a good 5-6 hour drive away from where I'm staying, but atleast there's something to do after in Vegas, compared to trekking it back home after the card is over.

For the last 2 years, they've had some of the best cards from top to bottom, so I'm looking forward to this, even if the Main Event isn't the strongest offering, I'm glad I get to see Horodecki VS Njokuani live...really glad to see Horodecki land the semi-main spot on this card as he's been a really cool guy every time I've met him and runs a tight ship out in London, ON at the Adrenaline Training Centre with Sam Stout and Mark Hominick.

The WEC is my little promotion that no one watches, and I don't know how big it is in the states, but in Canada, we haven't gotten too many actual live cards on TSN2 outside of Faber VS Brown and Torres VS Bowles from this year.
It's usually on at midnight on a weekday or weeknight, and usually since their scheduled so close to UFC cards, then it's going Head to Head with the PPV's.

Thoughts?

I'll be doing the reporting thing at WEC, and it will be my first trip to Vegas as well.

The mind boggles.

If you ever decide to compete in prize fighting, please protect yourself at ALL TIMES.

Man I don't want to be mean, but I don't get what all the hype for Chris Horodecki was about. Njokuani looked like a bully just beating up on a little kid like that. Njokuani's mom is going to be calling him now.

I met Mike Brown and Brad Pickett eating McDonald's double quarterpounders in Palms foodcourt after the fights. That was fucking awesome.

This was a fantastic show that seems to be getting slept on a lot. Plus, we got 6 fights in the time Strikeforce showed 4. Visher looked like a beast against Buck. Benavidez knocking Yahya the fuck out stunned the hell out of me. Plus, the aforementioned Horodecki nonsense...always a good time.

One more thing. PERUVIAN NECKTIE~!

Seriously, why the fuck do morons want WEC and UFC merged and lose a source of such great MMA, not to mention new, younger, and hungrier guys getting a chance to be on TV and get some exposure on a bigger stage?

Glad WEC is here to stay through 2010.

Because world champion fighters like Jose Aldo and Brian Bowles don't need to be making 10,000 dollars and fighting in front of 350,000 on a cable network with no penetration. They deserve more than that. The money they make barely allows them to be serious full-time fighters.

To add to Sprewell's point:

The money that those guys make isn't just a magical figure either. First of all, the money is taxed, so there goes a lot of it off of the top. Second, you pay your manager somewhere around a 15% fee. Then, a percentage of your purse goes to your trainers, usually around %1 or %2 to each trainer that you work with. Then, you have your living expenses, which in this day and age can pretty significant. The sponsor money these guys make is severely hamstrung by their lack of status and lack of visibility on television. Jose Aldo is 23, married, and living in Rio. He just recently was able to move into an apartment instead of living with a bunch of people in god knows what kind of conditions in a horrible part of the city. Guys like that deserve a lot more than what they're getting now.

This. It's aggravating as shit when dudes like Tito come and talk like fighter's are underpaid, when all he's doing is advocating for himself getting a bigger payday. WEC fighters consistently participate in some of the best fights and they get no love, monetarily speaking anyway. If any fighter in the UFC bitching about their payday actually gave a shit, they'd name drop some WEC fighters because if they get paid more, then everyone will innevitably get paid more.

And regarding WEC and UFC merging, I would only want to see the lightweight division merge into the UFC.

As someone who's just been introduced to the real world in a very real way (wife, kid, house), money gets gone REAL fast. And that's just money to take care of existing on the level you're already at. I think world champion fighters should have the luxury of you know, living in luxury a little bit. They do things that no one else in the WORLD can do, yet they're compensated like journeyman UFC welterweights. And they're destined to toil on Versus for a long, long time in front of not so many people. Shit, I bet Premier Combate has more television exposure in Brazil with the WEC than Versus has in the United States.

I normally don't say thing like this, but if you don't think guys like that deserve more money, then you're just a horrible apologist for every thing Zuffa does.

Recently married, recently bought a house, kid on the way, and job in jeopardy here, so I know exactly what you're talking about. A lot of these fighters are in the same position, and I have no idea how they do it. I'm not going to reveal what I make, but lets say you have a wife, kid, house, etc. and you make $35k a year. At least you have that job to go to 5 days of the week, and God forbid you lose your job, you go and apply for another one.

Then, say you're a fighter, and you have to spend 8 weeks training for a fight. You've received no money yet, you have to pay your dues to wherever you train, your payday is small, you're left with hardly anything, and you make less than the subject I detailed above. As a fighter, it's almost as if you're paying to have a job, not getting paid to be employed, and I just don't see how dudes survive like that. I couldn't live like that, and I sure as hell couldn't do what they do. And then if they get injured, Christ, who knows then. I have a decent understanding of how much some guys make off of sponsors, and it's not that much. If you're on WEC, you deserve to be paid more, and where guys need to start getting paid more are on WEC shows, and on the lower parts of UFC cards. If you're fighting at the top of a card, chances are, if you aren't Rampage, you're probably doing alright. Those guys can probably wait for higher paydays to trickle down to them. It's more important to have people who fight underneath you get paid more so they're able to take care of themselves better, thus allowing them to continue to fight, which means more people will tune in, and the sport will be able to grow. I don't know how much longer Zuffa is going to be able to stifle paydays like this.

It's just an unfortunate reality that most of these guys are interchangeable to the paying customer so they're not really worth much. For guys to get paid more, there either needs to be legit competition for talent or a fighter's union or both. Until that happens you can't really count on a big corporation to pay their employees like they're running a charity.

The best thing the WEC guys can hope for is that UFC keeps expanding and needs more and more talent to fill out their shows.

Really Fun Show. Interestingly Cerrone got in trouble with the knees (I had him on his way to a 28-27 win anyway) just like in the varner fight. Really looking for ward to Joseph Benavidez next fight.

To add to what was said above WEC kinda reminds me sometimes of WCW when they had allthose Cruiserweights and Luchadores a couple of guys stand out on top but the rest all seem to blend together and this is coming from a guy who watches everything. I can remember who evereyones won and lost against in the UFC 205 division. But in WEC allot of the smaller guys I get confused.

On another note WEC has a pretty good LW division going.

You have Cerrone, Varner, and Henderson on top.
then guys like Razor Rob, Anthony Njokuani, Anthony Njokuani, Ed Ratcliff, and Karen Darabedyan.
and then guys like Bart Palaszewski , Chris Horodecki, Ricardo Lamas, Danny Castillo and Shane Roller. Not a bad mix.

It's something that's not easily fixed though. Zuffa, I'd imagine makes money hand over fist. I can't be positive because I don't know what their costs and expenses are, but they make a fuck ton at live gate, ppvs, sponsors etc. But I can't picture WEC making a huge profit which is probably part of the reason their fighters make shitty money. Add to that the lack of exposure and it's hard to envision it getting better. With the economy being so shitty right now, people also are more selective on what they spend their money on. I'd venture that PPV buys are going to get shittier and shittier until things turn around as well.

Also people's priorities change. When I was married, I had a nice garage set up with a couple couches, pool table, and three tvs and I'd have people over and order every single UFC PPV and the PRIDE ones as well. I moved out, and now I live with my fiancee in her house and don't have that garage setup. I'm content with just watching the PPV's the next day or on the internet. I never order them anymore and only watch them live when I go over someone elses house to watch. Hell, I don't even have cable TV anymore. We had every channel for a while and found ourselves just not watching a lot of TV and what we did consistently watch was the same five or six channels and they were basically just local ones, so we did away with it and I just get locals now. So I don't even see the SPIKE or Versus shows live.

With the accessability of these things on the internet and the downturn of the economy, I'd imagine that for the fighters, things won't be getting better any time soon.

If you feel that guilty about it, then you shouldn't watch MMA. I wonder how Cerrone can afford to buy a ranch if he's dirt poor.

Lots of people do tons of shit none of us can do and aren't on TV and don't get paid much and don't get luxuries either. That's life. There's more to life than petty luxuries and money. I want fighters to be comfortable and live productive and enjoyable lives but I'm a human being. If you are a fighter, how successful you are is determined by your own hands.

Some fighters don't have to work 9-5 jobs and just get to work and train in the gyms all the time. So I mean, what's the big fucking deal?

I think fighters definitely deserve to get paid more. I think Henderson should've definitely gotten a raise maybe not like half a million per fight or a signing bonus in the 7 figure range, but definitely a significant raise over his $100 or 150K he was previously getting per fight. However, I don't get this guilt mentality that just because they are fighters they should get paid millions and millions of dollars and live luxurious lives. This sport for years has been a high risk, low reward sport. It still is. The average fighter salary is I think $11K a year. But I mean, 10 years ago, a guy wins a fight and he holds a $5K check over his head. And now that's what the lower side of the big card guys are making. To me that's an improvement. And I think it will continue to improve as time goes on as this sport is still young.



At the end of the day, the fighter is an individual and a grown man. He has to look out for himself. They are great fighters and have great fights, but they aren't exactly drawing a ton of money either. The last event only got around 340K viewers.

I don't want to get into a philosophical argument, but unions aren't the be all end all. The WGA strike was a joke and hurt more people and put MORE people out of work than it helped. Shows were cancelled, deals and projects that would've had people including writers working were shelved. Tons of money and revenue was lost. The only people really hurt by the strike were the people that it was apparently supposed to help. Not much changed after except the economy crashed and the entertainment industry is feeling that stress as well. Then SAG leadership tried to strike and the union members basically said NO YOU FUCKING AREN'T!