With an extremely busy MMA filled weekend with a Dream event and a UFC card, you would normally expect very little press for the WEC card. Under normal circumstances both organizations would receive plenty of press with the WEC being put on the back burner. That was not the case however. Both cards were received with very little fanfare and even less media attention. It was almost as if the MMA media as a whole (including blogs) were less concerned about two fight cards in 24 hours than they were about Chael Sonnen allegedly testing positive for PEDs.
UFC 119 was an important card but very underwhelming. Sean Sherk and Evan Dunham fought for relevancy, one to maintain it in an every changing division, and the other hoping to gain it in hopes of moving from a prospect to a contender. At the end of the fight both fighters showed that they could compete with the best of the division. Unfortunately, the fighter also fighting for relevancy last night, was met with a knee to the face in an extremely boring main event. Mirko Cro Cop, since leaving PRIDE for the UFC has be a shell of his former self. He seemed to have made adjustments in his game when he was able to choke out Pat Barry. It gave hope to his fans that maybe he was still able to compete at a moderately high level. Unfortunately, that man did not show up last night. He didn't seem to want to be there. He was timid and you could see a once great fighter fade before your eyes. The biggest story after last night was that Dana White didn't give Frank Mir Knock Out of the Night award for the incredibly boring fight. Yes, it was that underwhelming of a night.
Dream 16 was actually worse, if that's even possible. As the first leg of the two part event called "Save Our Company", the staff at FEG stacked the card with as many ratings friendly fighters as they could in a last ditch hope to their television partners that it was still a viable company. Satoshi Ishii looked dominant against a much smaller Minowaman in a fight that was strictly booked for a ratings grab. DREAM 16was on paper the best card the company could put on, but when the night was over, everyone who stayed up to watch the event was left disappointed. The biggest question after the event was if websites would rank Gegard Mousassi in the top 5 now that he has a Light Heavyweight Belt again.
So with these two events having little press before and even less after, why isn't anyone talking about WEC 51? It's perhaps the most stacked card since the Aldo/Faber championship event. The card is so good that Mike Brown, the unanimously agreed number four featherweight in the world, is fighting on the undercard. That's absurd! Writers/Bloggers/Fans complain about the lack of mainstream interest in the obviously exciting WEC but show that same attitude. This is an event to promote yet less than 400,000 people will see it.
Finally a point I'd like to bring up: The media can say that it isn't their responsibility to promote these fights, and to a certain extent they are right. They aren't promoters. They are the media who are supposed to cover a sport that they supposedly care enough about to write in some sort of a capacity. This event failing is no more the responsibility of the WEC marketing department as it is the responsibility of every writer out there. There are fans who may not have known about this event who check blogs/news sites. The fact that there is no coverage on Yahoo or CBS or Sherdog is laughable.
I guess my question is: What's your problem?
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