By Michael Ford 
Zuffa unleashed its brand of lightweight violence on the MMA world with its latest WEC offering from Columbus, Ohio. In the aftermath, we’re left with a pdivision shaken up, a legend likely hanging up the gloves, and questions abounding regarding the upcoming WEC PPV.
1. The Bantamweight Division is still in flux – Remember when we thought that Miguel Torres would rule the division with a iron fist for as long as he wanted? Well, despite an incredible skill-set, the former Pound-for-Pound contender ran into the Brian Bowles freight train, being stopped in the first. And Joseph Benavidez, the Urijah Faber protege, seemed destined to roll through the competition en route to a a title shot, until he ran into the less-heralded Dominick Cruz, a former first round victim of Faber’s. While many pundits considered Cruz to be merely a steppingstone for the new Bantamweight King, Dominick flummoxed the champion with varied striking attacks, winning the first two rounds easily. However, by forcing Bowles to relinquish his belt in anticlimactic fashion, Cruz scored a simultaneously impressive and unsatisfying win. The old adage about “you’ve gotta beat the champ to take his belt” was in full effect, and while Cruz scored the impressive win, there was still a sense that he didn’t snatch the crown and definitively stand atop the Bantamweight apex. His likely next opponent however, the aforementioned Joseph Benavidez, did definitively and impressively impose his will upon former champ Miguel Torres, who has now fallen from grace. The collective fanbase will likely revisit and retroactively diminish his accomplishments in a rush to proclaim him overrated, when the truth is, the division is still filling itself out. Torres is the most accomplished Bantamweight thus far, but as up and comers like Benavidez and Scott Jorgenson continue to proliferate, it will probably take another two years before the story of the Bantamweight division can be told. When the dust settles, we’ll know who the Top Dog is, but not before.
2. Jens got “Pulverized” – With 7 losses in his last 8 fights, it’s tempting to say that Jens Pulver is a shot fighter, but the truth is, Pulver isn’t done; he has just seen the game pass him by. Javier “Showtime” Vazquez’ one-sided beatdown of Pulver served to illustrate the rapidity of mixed martial arts evolution, as one fighter continued to develop facets of his fighting style to augment his grappling roots, while Pulver seemed overmatched. It’s unfortunate that Vazquez’s first WEC win came under such bittersweet circumstances, with a hostile crowd cheering lustily for Pulver to have one last hurrah at his expense. At only 35, Jens could still return, although his days as a Top 10 fighter are behind him. Hopefully the fans will be kind to him in whatever his next endeavor might be, whether as WEC color commentator, or in a regional promotion delivering the killer left hand that has curried him so much favor with the fans. I did like his Tapout shirt, though.
3. Stephan Bonnar was unimpressive – Zuffa has a way of using the color commentator role to provide steady employment to a fighter who the organization wants to keep in the public eye, but out of the cage. Frank Mir, before his recent renaissance, Randy Couture, during his retirement, and Jens Pulver, while he pondered the possibility of retirement, all filled that chair, and Stephan Bonnar was the latest. Unfortunately, he neither offered the keen insight nor the flashes of personality that his predecessors did, and often slipped into a passive mode of letting TODD HARRIS provide the insight. I know the rumor is that Mir’s recent faux pas might lead to him being relieved of his commentary duties, but while Dana White has promised that Bonnar will have a job with Zuffa “for life,” I’d rather see color commentary in Jens Pulver’s immediate future.
4. UFC on Versus overshadowed WEC on Versus – There’s still time to get the fans hyped for the inaugural WEC pay per view offering, but I couldn’t help but recall, as I watched the spots for the debut of UFC on Versus, that there was only one Countdown show for a WEC show on Versus. The first showdown between Urijah Faber and Jens Pulver was pushed as a HUGE deal, and ended up scoring the biggest ratings the WEC ever received. While it was nice to see Jon Jones and Brandon Vera get the star treatment, it still remains to be seen whether Jose Aldo will be promoted in the same fashion, beyond being called the “mirror image” of Urijah Faber. The previous week saw the James Toney signing overshadow the last minute promotion of this show, and with the news of a potential Ultimate Fight Night being put together a week before the WEC PPV, one can only wonder if Zuffa’s preference for pushing UFC to the forefront won’t lead to a lackluster showing for Aldo vs. Faber, as fans might feel a bit of MMA overload in April.
5. Jamie Varner was right – WEC knows how to promote Urijah Faber, and to a lesser extent, “Cowboy” Donald Cerrone. This was made quite clear, as the crowd reacted to them sitting at ringside, and being interviewed by Todd Harris about their upcoming challenges to the Featherweight and Lightweight championships respectively. Trouble is, neither the Featherweight nor Lightweight champion is as well-known or promoted, and if Aldo and Henderson retain, it’s unclear whether the promotion will be able to capitalize. Furthermore, in the Bantamweight division, so much promotional heft was put behind Miguel Torres as one of the company’s top stars, that the championship fight between Bowles and Cruz was somewhat underwhelming. Both were relatively anonymous, and didn’t get nearly the screen time on WEC and UFC broadcasts as necessary to imprint their names on the MMA fans’ collective consciousness. Will Cruz-Benavidez II be more than “the guy who has only lost to Urijah Faber” facing off against “Urijah Faber’s protege?”
6. Stalemates suck – The matchup between LC Davis and Deividas Taurosevicius was either a triumph or a failure of matchmaking, as the two featherweight fighters were so evenly matched that they battled to a stalemate, yet that stalemate proved neither exciting nor riveting. These weren’t two men on the verge of a title shot, nor were they stars of particular note, and so the fight felt, in many ways, pointless. As a fan of the sporting approach to MMA, I appreciated the battle of wills, but after 15 minutes of fighting, neither man established himself as the superior fighter, and neither made me care about him any more than I did before. While the closely-contested fight — a draw on one judge’s scorecard — could be seen as an argument in favor of 25-minute non-title matches, there’s no reason to believe that two additional rounds would have done anything but make the Columbus crowd more restless. Hopefully, we’ll see LC matched up against Leonard Garcia, who was part of the Fight of the Night on the undercard, next, and hopefully, that particular clash of styles will yield a more explosive and action-packed outcome.
7. Guard play still matters – While it was fashionable to discuss former IFL standout Bart Palaszewski’s penchant for decisions (with him winning more than his share of contentious victories this way) before the fight, the contest began with the highly-touted Karen Darabedyan putting “Bartimus” in danger before lazily leaving his arm in to get trapped in an armbar. On the heels of Jon Fitch’s decaration that “the closed guard is dead,” it was refreshing to see the conventional finish of ground and pound foiled by stout ju jitsu. Having said that, Darabedyan was impressive, and looked on more than one occasion to be on the verge of finishing the fight with strikes. Despite the win, I’d like to see Palaszewski take on former nemesis Chris Horodecki next, while Darabedyan should face Anthony Pettis.
8. Refereeing – Both the good and bad of refereeing was on display Saturday night, as Jerry Poe made us recall pro wrestling when he missed groin strikes during the Tauresevicius-Davis fight, then made us recall EliteXC when he imposed arbitrary standards for standups and separations in an effort to prompt action. Earlier in the night, he stood woefully out of position when Anthony Pettis unleashed fistic fury upon the prone body of Danny Castillo. Jerry Poe, enjoy your moment. Mark Matheny, in contrast, did what every good referee should do, and remained unheralded and invisible, while allowing the competitors to fight their fight. So let’s not confuse the two, ok? Mark Matheny — the one you want reffing your fight, and Jerry Poe – the one you don’t.
9. Everyone loves a Head Kick KO – Something tells me that Anthony Pettis’ knockout of Danny Castillo will be more than WEC 47’s Knockout of the Night; it’ll earn its way into the opening credits of the program.
