Carlos Condit
Though details are still emerging, it appears likely that the WEC’s welterweight division, including current title-holder Carlos Condit, will be merged into the UFC’s 170-pound class.
Condit’s scheduled title defense against Brock Larson, which was slated to co-headline WEC 39 on March 1st, has been canceled due to injury, though reports vary on which fighter was injured, and Condit is now expected to make his UFC debut against Martin Kampmann at UFC Fight Night 18, according to Five Ounces of Pain.
The WEC has always focused on lighter weight classes, never adopting the heavyweight division and recently axing its two heaviest weight classes: middleweight and light heavyweight. With the welterweight division now slated to be merged with the UFC it leaves the WEC with just three divisions, lightweight (155), featherweight (145), and bantamweight (135), with only the 155-pound class existing in both the WEC and UFC. However, news of the welterweight merger was preceded by reports that the WEC will add a 125-pound bantamweight division to it’s roster early this year.
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I KNEW IT WAS GONNA HAPPEN I KNEW IT… GO CONDIT… DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT CAMP HE TRAINS FOR… I CAN’T REMEMBER IF ITS JACKSON
Kris,
I read this story on another site but wasn’t sure if you’d run it due to the source.
yzf,
Arizona Combat Sports, which is where CB Throwaway and Ryan Bader train I believe.
Definitely an interesting possibility. There has already been some discussion on this site concerning Condit and whether he should look to make the jump to the UFC, or if he should stay in the WEC and continue to dominate the lesser competition. If Zuffa moves the Welterweights over like they did the LHWs, and MW, I wonder if they will later move to bring the 155s over. I’m not sure if they should necessarily get rid of the divisions, but maybe use them as an internal farm system, keep the division in place, and once someone makes 2-3 title defenses (in a shared weight class) move them over, and let someone else have a chance at the WEC belt. This could also pave the way for Zuffa to bring in the Women’s weight classes to the WEC. Time will tell.
I READ IT ON MMABAY LOL I WASN’T SURE IF IT WOULD BE PUT ON HERE EITHER…
NO SHIT HE TRAIN IN AZ. I FIGURED HE’D STAY IN NM.
Well, it seems like Sam Caplan at 5 oz is not the most reliable source sometimes.
Yeah, I’ve had a lot of issues with Caplan in the past and link to other sources whenever possible, but he broke this one. I caught it last night but hesitated on reporting it because the differences between his report and Weekly’s were pretty significant (who was injured, why the bout was canceled) but the details have unified since and have been corroborated by other sites as well so I felt confident enough to post it this morning.
CB Throwaway is very catchy isn’t it :)
this is really gonna stir up the division, and the UFC. we may see some weight changes in fighters. not sure if i like this…
hard first fight for condit if this turns out to be true…..great fight but why put two guys who could be top contenders at ww in a fight with each other so early a dumb move in my opinion…..imagine though if one day hazlett fights condit thats like an amazing fight right there!
Hazlett vs Condit would be a serious pretzel fight! I think they should have kept the Condit/Larson fight for their UFC debut, depending on how long Larson is out of action for. Don’t know about facing Kampmann, tough fight, but will be nice to have it free on Fight Night.
Condit in the UFC and perhaps against Kampmann that’s a good match… I agree with Gun that a fight against McLovin would be sick…. I don’t know if the WEC should fold the entire WW division but its clear that Condit doesn’t have top talent coming after his belt anymore ofcourse Brock being the only guy deserving of the shot cuz he himself has destroyed the division, soo imo those two should move up to the UFC and the WEC should start anew with their WW division…
i dont think condits chin is good enough for kampmann’s cannons
Doesnt leave much left for the WEC . I dont think they can survive not having at least WW competition . Even adding a womens division is cutting it thin . I like the women , but there just arnt enough quality fighters to keep people interested . There will be in the future for sure but not yet …… give it another 5 years or so .Why not just scrap it and merge the whole works .
People already whine about the strength of some UFC cards, imagine if you threw in some of the lesser known fighters in the WEC, who are good fighters, just not well known. You would either have to bump them to prelim fights, or get people complaining that they are not main car worthy, but if you leave them in WEC they still get TV time, and you don’t have uninformed people whining about the perceived “weakness” of the UFC cards.
this is utter crap, lol i have tickes to see this, what a bummer
Yeah, I don’t see WEC surviving much longer after this. That leaves them with lightweight, bantam, and featherweight. I personally am not a fan of the less than lightweighter’s (or kids as I call them). I used to watch WEC on TSN2 for the odd welterweight or if one of the 3 good small guys are fighting, but I’m not sure anymore.
They are adding flyweight, and I think the WEC will survive for a while. Zuffa owns them, and can use some of the extra UFC money to make sure that WEC survives. As long as WEC is on Versus for free, it helps promote MMA in general, which helps UFC. “A rising tide raises all ships.”
It’s true WEC will exist as long as Zuffa wants it to, but you can’t make much money off of a lower level cable company. I live in Canada, and you can only get WEC on TSN2. But TSN2 isn’t carried on Rogers, which covers most of Canada. I don’t know how many viewers Versus has, but I know not many people are watching WEC live north of the border.
Versus is limited here as well, around half the viewership of say SPEED channel or something like that, but that’s more people watching MMA than if the promotion wasn’t there.
kampmann will destroy him.
WEC will be around in some capacity for awhile they keep the production costs down and w/ Zuffa backing them they have help. I think Zuffa is really trying to create a niche market w/ them by having the lower weight classes and lets be honest the fights are pretty good most of the time the fighters are just lesser known.
The WEC has plenty of young talent that aren’t just known yet and they have miguel torres and Faber, who are at least imo top ten p4p fighters in the world. WEC will still be UFC jr for a long time, they will just have the speedier and smaller fighters in their. If its true and they do experiment with a womens division it could gather up alot of diverse range of fans. I was still looking for Condit to work Brock though, but Condit will definitely mix up the WW, put him against Fitch and lets see what the kids got!!! That is if Fitch’s face is recovered from GSP
Fitch fights Saturday.
This is a huge mistake by the WEC imo. Condit it a maketable star in the WEC. In the UFC he is just another welterweight. I have no idea what they are thinking here.
Man, the first time seen Condit {before I knew who he was] walking out to defend his title at WEC 30 or something like that, I was like this is their champ at WW. I was thinking to my self what a joke. After seeing him fight I couldn’t have been more wrong about him he’s a killer but honestly I don’t believe he can hang with the top of the UFC’s WW devision. Good luck Carlos.