WEC 39: Compelling Enough to Actually Watch
Published by Jim Genia on February 28th, 2009 in Current Events

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Who knew the scrappy guy from New England could dethrone the poster boy of the 145-pound weight class? Who knew the lightweight UFC refugee from Texas could find a home, and even dominate, in the “Little League World Series of Mixed Martial Arts”? On Sunday night, the Versus cable channel will air live the latest installment of World Extreme Cagefighting, an event that features champ Mike Brown taking on the seemingly unstoppable force that is Leonard Garcia, and thanks to this headliner – and a fight card stocked with a former lightweight champ, an IFL star and one of the deadliest strikers in the featherweight division – WEC 39 might be compelling enough to actually watch.

Brown was decent as a lightweight, but a cut of ten more pounds and he was facing superstar Urijah Faber at WEC 36 in a match-up few expected him to emerge from victorious. He did, though, thanks to Faber getting cocky and Brown feeding him a delicious knuckle sandwich, and now the wrestler from New England (Brown lives in Florida now, training with American Top Team) is the king of the hill. Similar to Brown, Garcia was decent as a lightweight as well, but three trips to the Octagon earned him two losses, so he was sent down to the Little Leagues of the WEC and the 145-pound weight class – a move that proved fortuitous, as Garcia went on to demolish in convincing fashion Shooto and K-1 Hero’s veteran Hiroyuki Takaya and aging legend Jens Pulver. So now it’ll be Brown against Garcia, the capable ground fighter and the rangy hard-hitter, and fans will be treated to either one fighter pounding the other into oblivion or a knockout of highlight-reel proportions. Both possible outcomes make this bout worth a look-see.

“Razor” Rob McCullough may have lost the WEC lightweight belt and his keen edge, but the Muay Thai ace can still throw down and deliver in the thrills department (see McCullough vs. Donald Cerrone for proof). He will have his hands full with tough grappler Marcus Hicks, yet you can count on one thing when McCullough fights: if he’s going down, he’s going down swinging. Former IFL 155-pounder Bart Palaszewski should have considerably less trouble with his opponent, Ricardo Lamas. Lamas has only a fraction of Palaszewski’s experience and has fought no where near the same level of competition, so expect “Bartimus” to come away with the TKO win. Jose Aldo, the most fearsome and lethal striker amongst the WEC featherweights, is going to slaughter journeyman foe Chris Mickle. Count on this bout to have an “Oh my God he’s dead!” ending.

There’s no question the WEC is where the best of the smallest combatants on Earth go to compete. Unfortunately, some editions have suffered under the ignominy of fruitless rematches (Faber vs. Pulver II, Paulo Filho vs. Chael Sonnen II) and less-than-impressive higher-weight title holders (Doug Marshall, Brian Stann, Steve Cantwell). Sunday night’s WEC 39 is no such an event. It’s worth watching.