Hijinks Inc.

Tag: WEC

  • The MMA Minute – WEC 51: Aldo vs. Gamburyan

    Wait, what? An MMA fight on a Thursday night? A card that includes a title fight and a total of 4 current or former title holders? What? Well, we’ll take it!

    This is really a pretty unbelievable card. Jose Aldo is the current Featherweight champ, probably a top 5 pound for pound fighter, and has completely torn through the division. Manny Gamburyan lives up to his nickname of ‘Anvil’ quite well, once he gets into the cage he’s just like a pitbull, and I think if anyone is going to give Aldo a run for his money, it’s Manny.

    To add to this fight, we’ve got Mike Brown (in a preliminary fight! that’s crazy!) and Miguel Torres, both fighters that have been in a slump recently, but were both considered unbeatable, once upon a time. Jamie Varner has held the Lightweight title, and Donald Cerrone has 3 Fight of the Night honors, including the 2009 fight of the year against Ben Henderson. This is really the cream of the WEC, a premier event indeed.

    Main card

    I really hate picking against Manny, but I just can’t pick against Jose Aldo, I think he’ll hold onto the belt. I like Varner to win a barn burner over Cerrone. I figure Torres has to get on the right track again eventually, this seems as good a time as any so I’ll go with him. I’m gonna go with Roop over Jung and Garcia to beat Hominick. I also expect Mike Brown to put a win together in his preliminary match.

  • The MMA Minute – WEC 50 Aftermath

    Hey kids, sorry for the delay on posting these. I haven’t actually been able to watch these fights yet, it’s been a crazy week and I just didn’t have the time. But the show must go on! So, rather than breaking down the fights on my own, I’ll point you to Sherdog’s outstanding coverage, and thank you for stopping by! Here’s the results along with how I fared on the night.

    Main card

    • Bantamweight bout: United States Scott Jorgensen vs. England Brad Pickett – Jorgensen defeated Pickett via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27).
    • Featherweight bout: United States Cub Swanson vs. United States Chad Mendes – Mendes defeated Swanson via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28).
    • Lightweight bout: United States Shane Roller vs. United States Anthony Pettis – Pettis defeated Roller via submission (triangle choke) at 4:51 of round 3.

    The Palaszewski/Micklewright fight was added late, I didn’t make a pick for that fight. I went 2-2 on the rest of the card, picking Jorgenson over Pickett and siding with Cruz to retain the championship. For an admitted non-expert on all things WEC… not to shabby!

  • The MMA Minute – WEC 50: Cruz vs. Benavidez 2

    Ahh, the joys of World Extreme Cagefighting, or the WEC as regular people call it. It’s the sister organization of the UFC, focusing on the smaller weight divisions, Lightweight (155 lbs), Featherweight (145 lbs), and Bantamweight (135 lbs). It’s so much fun watching these fights because these guys literally throw each other all over the place. Tomorrow night they hold their 50th event which will air on Versus the biggest (and only) draw being the Bantamweight title fight. This was supposed to be the debut of WEC poster boy Urijah Faber at his new weight class, but he had to pull out recently due to a knee injury. I have to confess, again, I haven’t watched quite as much WEC as I have other organizations, so some of these predictions are a bit off the cuff, or based on only 1 or 2 fights I’ve seen, you’ve been warned.

    Main card

    Before my picks, I’d like to do a quick review. Over the course of the last two months I’ve gone 2-2 in Strikeforce, 4-5 in UFC, and these are my first picks of a WEC card. 6-7? Those are very pedestrian numbers. Take out possibly the biggest upset in MMA history and a card littered with picks from a rooting interest instead of purely picks by the book and those numbers would be a bit better, but that’s just a hollow excuse, I promise to do better. So here’s your picks. I like Cruz to keep his belt, Roller over Pettis, Swanson over Mendes, and Jorgensen over Pickett. Keep your fingers crossed boys and girls.

  • The MMA Minute – Major MMA Organizations (non-UFC)

    After a busy week in the MMA world (2 events in 1 week!) we resume our series reviewing the history of MMA and it’s major organizations. To this point, we’ve had a 2 part series on the history of MMA (click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2), and followed that up with another 2 part series detailing the history of the UFC (click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2). I could break down all the other mainstream organizations and draw this out, but I’ve decided instead to just cover them all with a few quick blurbs in this single post, hope you don’t mind.

    We have 3 organizations left to cover: Pride, which was purchased and absorbed by the UFC, WEC, which is owned and operated by UFC, and Strikeforce, which is really the only realistic competition to the UFC. Of course, nobody knows for sure unless they were to square off, but many believe that outside of a handful of fighters, many in the Strikeforce organization aren’t quite up to par of what the UFC offers. But competition will bring out the best, so it’s all good for the fans.

    We’ll cover the history of these 3 organizations after the jump. (more…)