Chicks Heart Fights

It is a near crime how under the radar the WEC is. On the same weekend Kimbo Slice and company were making MMA look foolish, the WEC put together one of the best cards I have seen in a long time, with Urijah Faber and Miguel Torres turning in the best performances of their career.

This Sunday, the WEC has another strong event scheduled. Three championship matches are scheduled, including Brian Stann, who will defend his belt against Steve Cantwell. I’m calling Brian and his perfectly sculpted jaw for the win. Jamie Varner and Marcus Hicks will fight for the lightweight title, and I think we will have a new champ at the lightweight division. Finally, Carlos Condit will take on Hiromitsu Miura to keep his welterweight belt, and he will, indeed, keep it. So, tune in to Versus on Sunday night, and check out some great MMA action.

On a completely separate note, I have to say congratulations to Danielle Hobeika for winning the Dan Gable “America Needs Wrestling Award.” In addition to being an awesome friend to watch a fight with, she has done amazing things for wrestling. Need a Web site? Call Danielle. Looking for pictures? Call Danielle. Want to figure out ways to promote the sport? Call Danielle. Seriously, she rocks, and is very deserving of this award.  Check out some of her work here, here and here. Congrats, lady!

Looking at MMA Weekly’s light heavyweight top ten, there is not a whole lot of room to pry in another contender:

#1 Light Heavyweight Fighter in the World: Quinton Jackson
2. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua
3. Chuck Liddell
4. Lyoto Machida
5. Keith Jardine
6. Forrest Griffin
7. Wanderlei Silva
8. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
9. Ricardo Arona
10. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira

I am not completely on board with the order of these fighters, but that is not the point of this post, and I don’t disagree that these are the top ten light heavies in the world. Despite Stann’s dominating performance in the cage on Wednesday, I cannot place him anywhere in this top ten.

However, when you look beyond this top ten, I see some intriguing match-ups with Stann in the Octagon. Stann has shown himself as an all-around fighter, but that left hook which knocked out Doug Marshall definitely displayed his skills as a striker. For that reason, I would love to see Stann against Houston Alexander or Michael Bisping. Since all three men have fought/will fight in March/April, the match-up could be put together for an August or September fight. (That was a really poorly written sentence-I apologize.) Stann is going to continue to grow as a fighter, as he has already made huge strides in his short career. It will be interesting to see what Zuffa does with his career.

Just tuning into WEC on Versus, and wow, WEC draws a trashy crowd. Here are the fights scheduled for tonight:

• Champ Doug Marshall (204) vs. Brian Stann (204) — for WEC light heavyweight title
• Marcus Hicks (156) vs. Ed Ratcliff (155)
• Bryan Baker (184) vs. Chael Sonnen (186)
• Steve Cantwell (203) vs. Tim McKenzie (203)
• Blas Avena (170) vs. Hiromitsu Miura (170)
• John Alessio (170) vs. Brock Larson (171)
• Richard Crunkilton (156) vs. Sergio Gomez (156)
• Alex Serdyukov (169) vs. Ryan Stonitsch (171)
• Chris Manuel (136) vs. Kenji Osawa (134)
• Logan Clark (186) vs. Scott Harper (186)

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