The move comes a little over a year after the UFC officially absorbed the WEC’s talent roster, establishing the UFC Bantamweight (135) and Featherweight (145) divisions in the process. Shortly after, Dana White started talking about the eventual Flyweight class.

BANTAMWEIGHTS BEWARE

Speculated to join the division are current Bantamweights Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson, Joseph Benavidez, and The Ultimate Fighter 14′s Bantamweight winner, John Dodson.

The overwhelming focus seems to be on which Bantamweights will make the jump down in weight, but I’m personally more intrigued by the new fighters this will bring into the promotion. And I predict that the promotion’s first star is likely one that is not currently under contract with Zuffa.

Who that may be remains a mystery. But what often gets overlooked is the fact that cutting down a weight class gets exponentially harder the lower you get. When Bantamweights and Featherweights were added last year, a lot of the talk was on which Lightweights (155) would make the cut down to Featherweight, with the speculation being that we would suddenly see a mass exodus. It didn’t quite happen that way, and thus far those that did make the jump – guys like Tyson Griffin and George Roop – have flamed out in their attempts to be the big dogs in the puppy kennel.

But cutting down to 145 pounds is a tough proposition when you’re already cutting weight to make 155, simply because you don’t have the extra expendable mass that bigger fighters have. In many ways, even though there’s a difference of fifteen pounds between Light Heavyweight and Middleweight, it’s easier to make that jump than to make it from 155 to 145. Which is also why the weight classes in MMA are set up the way they are.

Guys like Dodson and Johnson already walk around (and weigh in) below 135 for their fights, so the cut likely won’t be as tough for them. But anybody currently at Bantamweight and Featherweight who thinks they’re just going to make the cut to 125 and find immediate success is going to be in for a rude awakening…particularly in the coming months when the establishment of the division sees an infusion of international talent.

The announcement of Flyweights will make for great fights, but also some intriguing roster shifts. Stay tuned.

That represents a significant drop from the previous WEC televised card in January, which was headlined by a Lightweight Title bout and the return of featherweight and perennial WEC drawing card Urijah Faber after a seven month lay-off. The only other card in the last two years to do worse numbers was last December’s WEC 45, which had no star power other than former Lightweight champion Donald Cerrone, a minor star in the promotion’s weakest weight class, who was just coming off a decision loss to Ben Henderson.

The sudden drop has had several folks speculating what this means for their initial foray into pay-per-view this April and if, in the grand scheme of things, this means the sky is falling on the promotion.

Former WEC Bantamweight champion Miguel Torres

The answer is no. Well, not yet at least. The WEC does have problems, but they extend far beyond a poor rating on Saturday night.

WEC 47 had a lot working against it. For one, most of the audience was largely unfamiliar with the two fighters competing for the Bantamweight title. Bowles had yet to prove that his knockout of Miguel Torres was anything more than a fluke. His challenger, Dominick Cruz, was a viable challenger statistically but had only fought on television once in the last three years. Anticipation and buzz for the fight was almost non-existent.

The WEC had also heralded the card behind fights featuring Jens Pulver and Miguel Torres, but they represented problems as well. Pulver had once been a draw for the promotion due to his association with the UFC and an exciting series of fights with Urijah Faber. He also went into the event coming off five consecutive losses, and most simply did not buy him as a viable challenger in a stacked featherweight division. The return of Miguel Torres did present some opportunity to bring in viewers, but despite his efforts he does not have the following or star power of someone like Faber.

Beyond the lack of star power, the card was also a victim of timing. It came on the heels of the aforementioned pay-per-view venture, which had both promoters and the viewing audience looking past the event and towards the showdown between Faber and Jose Aldo in April.

The real problems in the WEC lie in places other than the poor number they drew in Saturday, and the fallout from the events of the card itself should yield greater concern than its ratings: it resulted in the retirement of Jens Pulver, the demystification of Miguel Torres, and yet another brief Bantamweight title reign ended unexpectedly. Those three fights alone have placed the WEC in a conundrum: it now finds itself venturing into an uncertain pay-per-view market while it’s hemorrhaging star power.

In terms of its drawing power, the Bantamweight division is a relative no-man’s land. It’s seen a sudden surge in talent that has resulted in parity at the top of the weight class. What’s good for competition, however, can be bad for business.

Revenue in combat sports is made by and thrives on consistency. As an example, the UFC’s biggest draws at the moment are its most dominant champions: Brock Lesnar, Georges St. Pierre, and Anderson Silva. Fans need to believe that a challenger could potentially usurp the champion in order to maintain interest, but a title switching hands too often results in the perception (whether accurate or not) that it’s a wide open field and any number of fighters could become champion on any given night. As a result, the fighters in the division gain the respect of hardcore fans and analysts while the value of the title they’re vying for is diminished in the eyes of the casual viewer.

Featherweight Urijah Faber is still the WEC's most proven drawing card, but for how much longer?

That leaves the Featherweights, and in particular former champion Urijah Faber, to carry the weight of the promotion on their backs. Needless to say, if Faber wins the title he’ll re-establish himself as the flag-bearer of the division and the WEC as a whole. A loss against such a worthy opponent will not hurt his reputation as a fighter, but after two losses to Mike Brown will definitely hurt the WEC’s ability to push him as a major star.

In addition, WEC is going into its first pay-per-view while losing momentum as a promotion. Some place the blame for the significant drop in overall viewership over the last several events squarely on the Versus/DirecTV debacle. However, that argument requires we ignore the fact that WEC 46 in January drew 640,000 viewers. That matches (and in some cases even beats) the higher-profile cards WEC presented while still airing on DirecTV, while none of the previous three cards topped 420,000 viewers. The success of that particular event is directly attributable to the presence of Urijah Faber on the card and further evidence of his value.  If Faber were to lose to Aldo in convincing fasion, it’d be a disaster for the promotion.

New Bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz may be the future of the promotion.

The only potentially positive outcome would be Jose Aldo as the promotion’s version of Anderson Silva: a nigh-untouchable striker whose exciting knockouts make him worth watching no matter who he’s matched up against. WEC also has a charismatic and potentially bankable Bantamweight champion in Dominick Cruz, so long as he can string at least two successful title defenses. If he can do so, the WEC will have an even bigger star at 135 than it had with Miguel Torres.

I personally would like to see the WEC succeed, as I truly believe it’s provided the best fight cards of the last three years and is the most consistently entertaining promotion in the world. Unfortunately, they’re not going to be a priority for parent company Zuffa (which also owns The UFC) and as a result they have few options in terms of resources and fighters. It’s almost unfair to expect a promotion to succeed when it’s restricted to two relatively untested weight divisions and a third weight division with an already shallow talent pool subject to raiding by the UFC.

The MMA industry is uncertain terrain for any promotion. Even the UFC – the most recognizable brand name in the sport’s history – finds itself serving at the whim of circumstance; the various injuries and re-shuffling of cards last Fall testify to that fact. In that sense, the WEC’s predicament isn’t unprecedented, nor is it hopeless.  But the events of the last several months have increased the pressure to perform well in its inaugural pay-per-view outing.

Dominic Cruz overwhelms Brian Bowles. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.

It was a chaotic scene coming out of the second round. The fight was stopped during a commercial break on Versus, which confused the audience at home and the announcers. We had left the two fighters going at it full-force, swiftly and valiantly, without seemingly any physical difficulty. We returned to a cold cut of boos and a victorious Dominic Cruz raising his hands in the air while color commentator Stephan Bonnar struggled to provide answers for the home audience.

At first it was assumed to be a cut, as most sudden and unexpected stoppages are. However, Bonnar quickly noted that the cut was barely visible, let alone a stoppable injury. Speculation then turned to a leg injury and finally that nagging hand possibly being broken, with the confirmation coming shortly after the official decision had been announced to an angry and disappointed live crowd.

Out of respect for both fighters, it should be noted that up until this point Cruz was handily winning the fight. His unorthodox fighting stance and foot movement had overcome and exasperated the outmatched Bowles for ten minutes. He bobbed in and out, popping Bowles with solid shots. Whenever Bowles attempted to move in with power punching he’d be counter-punched to all Hell. The only scares Bowles gave Cruz were fleeting and inconsequential.

In neither round did we see any indication that Bowles’s hand was broken or giving him any trouble. This is not to say that he did not legitimately break his hand. He most assuredly did, and photographic evidence provided by his Twitter page confirmed this (see right). The question, though, is whether Bowles truly could not under any circumstances continue with the fight, or if he allowed a nagging injury to excuse giving up on what was, up until that point, a losing and wholly frustrating effort.

Brian Bowles's badly broken hand. Photo courtesy his Twitter account.

As myself and many others half-jokingly pointed out, fellow WEC fighter Urijah Faber would have stayed in the fight. In his rematch with Mike Brown, Faber broke both hands and still fought through a grueling and – considering he literally had no use of his hands – highly competitive bout. Does that make Urijah Faber a tougher fighter than Brian Bowles?

Well, yes and no.

Bowles came into the sport of MMA with no athletic pedigree. He was not an athlete in school, and he did not come from a wrestling or jiu-jitsu background. In fact, he had very little in the way of traditional expertise when he made his professional debut on his twenty-sixth birthday. Much of his skill was adapted through the Mixed Martial Arts equivalent of on the job training. For that, he should be commended: he’s clearly a smart, well-conditioned fighter and a fast learner.

However, his fight on Saturday showed that there is such a thing as life preparation for the port. You don’t have to grow up the toughest kid on your block to be successful in Mixed Martial Arts. There is, however, a certain mental toughness that one gets from being a longtime athlete, martial artist, amateur wrestler, etcetera. Someone with that sort of background is prepared to push through that kind of an injury, even if the circumstances would seem insurmountable to the casual observer.

Let me make this clear: Brian Bowles is still a contender and a threat at 135 pounds. That I cannot and will not question. It still takes more guts than I, and most likely you, have to step into the cage and do what he does on a regular basis. But what was made clear on Saturday is that he’s still young and still an outsider in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. When all is said and done, hopefully this will be a learning experience for Bowles. You can have the proper amount of preparation for a fight, but there are always going to be factors, whether from another fighter or circumstance, for which nobody can prepare.

Additionally, both the depth of competition at Bantamweight and his nagging hand injury means that Bowles is going to have to expand his repertoire and become a more versatile fighter if he has any hope of retaining his position. Nobody can win at any weight on pure power alone, and in a division that has an incredible variety of styles, approaches, and speed, a lot of adjustments are going to need to be made.

It’s daunting, but not impossible. One boxer once found himself in the same exact predicament as Bowles. He got by early on by being a puncher for the most part, but a nagging hand injury not only threatened to leave him out of contention but out of boxing entirely. With the help of experienced trainers and his own gumption, the boxer relied on his footwork and modified his game to become more defensive. It not only made Floyd Mayweather a better fighter, it made him the best in the game.

Time will tell how and when Bowles will bounce back from this loss. It’s going to be a challenge, but it’s not an impossible feat. Brian Bowles will have to learn in a short amount of time what’s taken a lifetime to instill in the likes of Urijah Faber, Lyoto Machida, Anderson Silva, and all the other greats in the sport. It seems almost impossible, but so did the prospect of him becoming champion in the first place.