芜湖县国税局丁仕新:WEC to merge with UFC

By Maggie Hendricks

As was first reported by MMA Fighting,the UFC and the WEC will merge in January 2011. The WEC will have itstwo scheduled events, Urijah Faber vs. Takeya Mizugaki in Las Vegas onNov. 11 and Ben Henderson vs. Anthony Pettis in Arizona on Dec. 16.After that, the fighters will be rolled into the UFC.

Henderson,the WEC lightweight champion, texted with Cagewriter after the newsbroke. He gave a simple reaction: :-). He couldn't be happier about thenews that not only will the UFC and WEC merge, but that the winner ofhis bout with Pettis will fight the winner of Gray Maynard vs. FrankieEdgar for the UFC lightweight belt. 

"I'm very excited. Now themajor goal is to go over there wearing a belt," Henderson said. "To bethe best and make that claim, you've gotta beat the best. I want to takethat one step further and beat not only the best, but everyone sothere's no doubt."

His opponent on Dec. 16, Anthony Pettis, is just as excited about the merger.

"WhenI heard about it, I was finishing up my morning training session, and Iwanted to go right back to the gym and train," Pettis told Cagewriter."My fight with Ben was big enough, and now I'm two fights away frombeing the UFC champion. It's two championships in two fights."

He said he will always be grateful for his beginnings with the WEC.

"Ilook at it like college, and now I'm going to the NBA, and it just sohappens that I'm the first-round draft pick. The UFC is where I want tobe."

Henderson and Pettis both said they had no idea that themerger was coming, which was echoed by other fighters. Cagewriter brokethe news to bantamweight Scott Jorgensen, who will fight Dominick Cruzfor the title in December, and lightweight Anthony Njokuani, who willbattle Edward Faaloloto in November.

"I think I'm going to be aUFC champion come January 1! I didn't even know what happened, I wasasleep. I had a missed call from my manager and a text from you,"Jorgensen told Cagewriter. He also said that he is looking forward tobeing exposed to a whole new audience, who will love his style offighting.

"I don't put on dull fights," Jorgensen said. "The factthat we're on the UFC stage means that I get to show more people howexciting and how tough I really am. Every UFC fan that wasn't a WEC fanwill become my fan now."

Njokuani didn't have any specific UFC fighter that he wanted to call out. He was just happy about the news. 

"Oh,hell yeah. I'm ecstatic," he told Cagewriter. "There's nobody. Whoever Igo up against, I'm just using that person to show the world what I'vegot."