WEC 43 Tickets on Sale July 8; Jamie Varner Won’t Be Stripped of Title, Expected to Fight Cerrone-Henderson Winner
Tickets for WEC 43: Cerrone vs. Henderson, World Extreme Cagefighting’s recently announced event which is set to take place on September 2 at the Covelli Center in Youngstown, Ohio, will go on sale to the general public on July 9.
WEC newsletter subscribers can purchase tickets one day early on July 8 for the Versus-televised event, which is headlined by an interim lightweight championship bout between Donald Cerrone and Ben Henderson.
Lightweight champ Jamie Varner, sidelined for the indefinite future due to injuries suffered in a January win over Cerrone, will not be stripped of the 155-pound title, according to WEC general manager Reed Harris who, in an interview with MMAjunkie, corrected a report from the Youngstown Vindicator stating that the promotion was planning to strip the belt from Varner and crown the Cerrone-Henderson winner the promotion’s undisputed champion.
“Jamie is not stripped of the title,” Harris said. “We’re all hoping Jamie can come back later this year and defend his title against whoever wins the interim title. We just couldn’t put the division on hold. We had to move it forward. … Donald and Benson were elated.”
Harris also spoke with NWI.com to clarify his quote from the Vindicator interview which said Jamie Varner’s career may be over.
“Jamie’s injured and I’m not sure when he’s going to come back,” Harris said. “And (the Vindicator reporter) said, ‘Is there a chance he couldn’t come back?’ and I said, ‘Of course — he’s got an injury to his hand.’ So for that reason, we did this as an interim belt. Obviously if he can’t come back, we will do it as a permanent title.”
Tags: Ben Henderson, Donald Cerrone, Jamie Varner, Reed Harris
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When I saw the story quoted from the vindicator earlier on another site, I suspected it to be inaccurate, I was right. That’s good for Cerrone and Henderson to have the chance at the interim belt. I hope that Varner can get healed and get back at it.
I feel that whoever Varner ends up defending his title against, he’s going to have a difficult time doin so because he’s been off for a while and he’ll be coming off an injury. He’ll most likely have to deal with ring rust and will be facing someone with momentum on their side so I say Varner will be the underdog and will be facing an uphill battle when he returns.