WEC 53: Anthony Pettis Defeats Ben Henderson In Final WEC Fight

The WEC is no more. The promotion that so many great mixed martial artists have passed through it will now merge with the UFC. But Ben Henderson and Anthony Pettis made sure that the promotion went out in style.

For five rounds Pettis and Henderson went back and forth. Both men took turns taking the others' back in multiple rounds and almost securing the finish. Pettis was landing the better strikes on the feet but Henderson was finding takedowns and doing good work from on top.

Most fans and media I spoke to had the fight even going into the fifth and final round. In the round Pettis landed some nice strikes early while Henderson got a takedown and did some more work from top position. Then, with under a minute left in the fight, Pettis ran up the side of the cage, sprung off and threw a kick that landed and knocked Henderson down. Henderson managed to survive to the final bell but the kick secured the win for him. All three judges gave him the nod on the scorecards.

With the win Pettis becomes the final WEC lightweight champion and will face the winner of the upcoming UFC lightweight championship bout between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard.

Oh, and just because the kick deserves to be seen:

When Dominick Cruz and Scott Jorgensen met at WEC 53 it wasn't just for the WEC bantamweight title (held by Cruz). The winner would also be named the first ever UFC bantamweight champion. It didn't take long into the first round to realize that Jorgensen probably was not going to have any answers for Cruz's strange style. Once the five rounds ended it was Cruz who had won every round, without any doubt.

Jorgensen could not get close enough to Cruz for the entirety of the fight. Cruz would jump in, throw a combination of punches and kicks, and jump back out. Dominick was already out of range by the time that Jorgensen had started to load up his counter. On top of dominating the stand-up, Cruz was able to land knee tap takedowns with regularity to put the fight on the ground where he could land some nice ground and pound.

After the decision was announced Cruz made it clear that he wanted to take on Urijah Faber in his next title defense. Faber is the only man to ever beat Cruz but that fight happened at featherweight, not bantamweight.

Donald Cerrone had what many fans were calling a "gimmie" lined up at WEC 53 when he took on former IFL star Chris Horodecki. It took two rounds, but Cerrone was able to win. It wasn't quite as pretty as many would like with Horodecki having decent moments in the first round but a win is a win and should make sure that the UFC has room for Cerrone after the WEC merges into the promotion.

In the first round Cerrone was unable to use his height very well as Horodecki got inside and worked punches to both the head and body. He finished the first round by taking Horodecki's back on the ground and locking in both hooks. There wasn't enough time to finish the fight at that point but it was probably enough to have earned him the first round on the judges scorecards.

Of course, those scorecards didn't matter when Chris Horodecki's corner gave him the incredibly bad advice to take the fight to the ground. Once the fight was on the ground Cerrone used his submission skills to lock in an omoplata shoulder lock. He attempted to finish the hold with a crossface but Horodecki continued to fight the hold only to end up locked in a triangle choke. It took a while, but eventually Cerrone was able to lock in the choke fully and force the tap from Horodecki.

The WEC 53 broadcast got off to a solid start when Kamal Shalorus and Bart Palasewski put on a back and forth fight that saw both men make a legitimate claim that they had won the bout when the fifteen minutes of action came to a close. In the end two of the three judges saw the fight for Shalorus.

In the first round it was Shalorus who used his wrestling to put the fight on the floor where he spent most of the round landing hard punches to the head and body. Palaszewski did his best to defend and certainly took punishment, but it was likely that the heavy offensive output from Kamal served to tire him out as the fight went on. The second round saw Bart do a nice job of using short, straight punches to counter the looping power shots of Shalorus. The third round was the closes of the entire fight as Shalorus managed to do some work from the top on the ground but Bart found his way to his feet and closed out the fight landing hard shots to the head of his foe.

One judge somehow found all three rounds for Shalorus, continuing the sad trend of giving rounds to the guy who throws the harder looking punches, even if they don't land. The other two saw it as a 29-28 fight, one for Shalorus, the other for Palaszewski to give Kamal the split decision victory.