BROOMFIELD, Colo. – World Extreme Cagefighting brings 22 of the top lighter weight fighters in the world to the 1stBank Center in Broomfield, Colo. this Thursday, Sept 30, with “WEC 51: Aldo Gamburyan“. The event airs LIVE on Versus beginning at 9 p.m. ET.
WEC Featherweight Title Fight: Jose Aldo vs. Manny Gamburyan
The WEC featherweight title is on the line in the main event as 145 lb. champion Jose Aldo (17-1) defends his title against The Ultimate Fighter season five finalist Manny Gamburyan (11-4). This will be Aldo’s second title defense since taking the title from Mike Brown via knockout at WEC 44 in Nov. 2009. Aldo’s first title defense ended in a unanimous decision victory against “The California Kid” Urijah Faber at WEC 48 back in April.
Currently ranked as the number two featherweight in the world, Gamburyan is undefeated since dropping to 145 lbs. and transitioning into the WEC. He has fired off three consecutive wins in the division; a unanimous decision over John Franchi at WEC 41, a unanimous decision over Leonard Garcia at WEC 44 and then most recently, and most impressively, a first round knockout of Mike Brown at WEC 48.
Aldo is coming into this fight with a ton of justifiable hype. Not only is he the number one featherweight in the world but is also seen as one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world (Sherdog has him ranked at number three). But you can never count out Manny Gamburyan. He is very strong and packs some heavy hands.
Lightweight bad blood: Jamie Varner vs. Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone
In the co-main event, former lightweight champion Jamie Varner (16-3-1, 2 NC) takes on his nemesis Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone (11-3, 1 NC) in a rematch from a Jan. 2009 fight in which Varner was awarded a technical split decision after Cerrone hit him with an illegal knee in the final round and he was unable to continue.
There is a lot of bad blood between these two, lots of smack talk and emotions have gotten heated. At one point the WEC even released a statement condemning Cerrone for saying he wanted to inflict so much damage upon Varner that he would become the first death in MMA. Cerrone apologized, but the point of the matter is, do not expect the “feeling out” process in this fight to last say about… .2 seconds.
A lot on the line: Miguel Torres vs. Charlie Valencia
A year-and-a-half ago no one would believe you if you told them by the time WEC 51 gets here Miguel Torres (37-3) would be coming off back-to-back losses. Between 2004-2005 Torres racked up seventeen straight wins. He was the bantamweight champ and seemingly unbeatable.
Brian Bowles stopped Torres’ win streak with a first round knock out at WEC 42 in Aug. 2009. Joseph Benavidez was next in line, and he submitted Torres via guillotine choke in the second round at WEC 47 in March 2010.
Thursday night Torres will face Charlie Valencia (12-5), a ten year veteran who is 5-3 in the WEC. He is a dangerous fight for Torres for more reasons than one. Valencia is on a three fight win streak with victories over Seth Dikun, Coty Wheeler and Akitoshi Tamura.
A loss for Torres would probably not cost him his job with the WEC, but it is definitely going to raise the question if he can still compete successfully at the elite level. And that is so crazy to even think about considering what this man has done in his career. My god, he’s only lost three fights. But the fact of the matter is that the skill level has become so high so fast, it is not what it was one or two years ago.
If Torres wins this fight, we do not have this discussion and we can chalk the back-to-back losses up to something else; maybe a bad training camp, bad style match-ups. diarrhea or he forgot his lucky underwear.
WEC 51 fight card:
MAIN CARD (Televised)
- Jose Aldo vs. Manny Gamburyan
- Jamie Varner vs. Donald Cerrone
- Miguel Torres vs. Charlie Valencia
- Leonard Garcia vs. Mark Hominick
- Chan Sung Jung vs. George Roop
PRELIMINARY CARD (Not Televised)
- Chris Horodecki vs. Ed Ratcliff
- Mike Thomas Brown vs. Cole Province
- Diego Nunes vs. Tyler Toner
- Antonio Banuelos vs. Chad George
- Tie Quan Zhang vs. Jason Reinhardt
- Nick Pace vs. Demetrious Johnson