WEC and its revolving door of Champions

The other night the WEC put on another great show and what seems to be a regular occurrence a title changed hands. Unlike their cousins the UFC, who’s champs are currently dominating their respective divisions the WEC champs change frequently. This unpredictability is what makes the WEC so fun to watch and super entertaining ever time out, but is it a good thing? Does this revolving door of Champions hurt the WEC more then it actually helps them? The face of the organization has been Urijah Faber since he won the Featherweight Title back at WEC 19 in 2006. Faber is also the only WEC champ in its history to have more then 3 successful title defences. Even though Faber lost the belt at WEC 36 he has remained the face of the organization partly due to this revolving door.

The UFC absorbed the Welterweight, Middleweight and Light Heavyweight classes of the WEC in February of 2009. Since that happen the WEC has put on 9 shows and the titles of their 3 weight classes were on the line 8 times. The champ was only successful in defending their title 3 times, so the title changed hands 5 times or 62.5% of the time. To take that one step further the WEC since its beginning has held 64 title fights with 34 different champs leaving the cage or 53% of the time a new champ is crowned. Compare this to the UFC who has held 99 title fights with only 40 different champs holding the belt, that’s only a 40% turnover.

With that kind of turnaround in their champs the WEC keeps things very competitive and that is what sets them apart from the others. Lookout though as the three weight classes all have recently crowned new champs. These champs will look to defend their titles and defy the odds.

Research was done using Wikipedia, please let me know if you find any errors. (wikipedia doesn’t fact check)

Tags: Anderson Silva, Ben Henderson, BJ Penn, Brian Bowles, Brian Stann, Brock Lesnar, Chael Sonnen, Chuck Liddell, Dana White, Dominick Cruz, Donald Cerrone, Forrest Griffin, Frank Mir, Georges St. Pierre, Gilbert Melendez, Jamie Varner, Jose Aldo, joseph Benavidez, Lyoto Machida, Miguel Torres, Mike Brown, MMA, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Randy Couture, Rashad Evans, Shane Carwin, Steve Cantwell, UFC, Urijah Faber, WEC

Category: Exclusive, MMA, UFC, WEC