By Bryan Tucker
- Executive Editor
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The WEC will make its first trip to Phoenix in December, the promotion announced during the Versus broadcast of
WEC 50 on Wednesday night.
In what was a first for the company, the WEC partnered with AMP Energy for a promotion – the "Hometown Takedown Contest" – that allowed fans to vote for the location from a list of 30 cities across the country.
Phoenix will host what is expected to be WEC 54 on Dec. 16 at the Jobing.com Arena in suburban Glendale, home to the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes. Milwaukee and Nashville were the runners-up
The card will be the first trip to Arizona for a Zuffa promotion. Neither the UFC nor WEC has held a fight card in the state, which passed MMA legislation in 2008.
Arizona, and the Phoenix area specifically, has a solid base of fighters, including WEC lightweight champion
Ben Henderson. After the announcement was made, Henderson said the Arizona fanbase deserves a card.
"It's gonna be awesome, man," Henderson said. "We've got some great fans out there. They've been MMA hardcore fans for the past 10, 15 years – a long time. There's a lot of good fighters out there, and I'm super excited."
Just before the announcement was made, Anthony Pettis – from Milwaukee, one of the three finalist cities – submitted Shane Roller late in their fight that was expected to produce Henderson's next challenger for the lightweight title. Though no bouts have been announced for the December card in Phoenix, the timing sets up nicely for the WEC to feature a lightweight title fight between Pettis and Henderson on the card.
Zuffa/UFC president Dana White made the official announcement alongside former WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber, who is sponsored by Amp and is one of the energy drink's lead spokespeople, and play-by-play voice Todd Harris.
"It's funny – people have been terrorizing me for a long time to get either a UFC or WEC to Arizona," White told Harris. "It's finally going to happen now."
Voting took place throughout June and July. After registering, fans were able to vote a maximum of 10 times each per day. According to Amp and the WEC, more than 270,000 votes were cast.
In the days leading up to the close of online voting, the official website's leader board showed Phoenix in the top spot, followed by Milwaukee. Atlanta, Boise, Chicago, Nashville and Sacramento were all cities that trailed Phoenix when the site removed the leader board from public view in the contest's waning days.
At the top of Wednesday's WEC 50 broadcast on Versus, it was announced that the top three cities were Milwaukee, Nashville and Phoenix. None of those three have hosted a WEC event, and Nashville is the only one to have held a UFC event when it played host to UFC Fight Night 18 in April 2009.
The 30 cities that were part of the contest were: Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boise, Idaho; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Cincinnati; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas; Denver; Detroit; Houston; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; Miami; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; Nashville, Tenn.; Newark, N.J.; Oklahoma City; Orlando, Fla.; Phoenix; Philadelphia; Portland, Ore.; Sacramento, Calif.; St. Louis; Salt Lake City; San Antonio; Seattle; and Washington.
Read More: benhenderson, phoenix, wec54, wec50, wec54, news
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