Well, What About WEC?

Urijah Faber, Miguel Angel Torres, Gary Brown, and Donald Cerrone.

If you recognize any of the above names, then you have seen the World Extreme Cage-fighting show on Versus and have Reed Harris and Scott Adams to thank for it.

When I tried to find a picture of Reed Harris and Scott Adams to use for this article, I could not find one.

If anyone reading this wants to see some dynamite pictures of Mr. Harris and the four fighters mentioned at the top of this article, I hope you will run out and by the current issue of the new "Ultimate MMA" magazine.

I subscribe to Black Belt, Ring, Fight,  UFC, and other magazines that are devoted to fighting in general.

The new Ultimate MMA is totally devoted to all things MMA.

I love the Ultimate MMA magazine and highly recommend it to everyone like me who can never get enough of their favorite pastime.

This issue has been very hard for me to put aside so I can write a few articles which it has inspired in me and I will pick it up as soon as I have finished writing.

Chocolate, MMA, and sports writing are admittedly my obsessions.

Along with my grandchildren, horses and dog Misty, they are the diversions that make me comfortable and distract me from the discomfort of Multiple Sclerosis.

The subscriptions are costly, for a single copy of Ultimate MMA though it is $5.99 in the US and $3.95 in Canada, which is less costly than a single dose of the MS drug of Copaxone I used to have to inject, but much more enjoyable and pain free as therapy goes.

The pictures of the WEC five I have mentioned are so beautifully done, that I wish I could be a teenager and put them up on the walls of my bedroom. Yes, they are that good!

Unfortunately, Grandpa Mel is not quite that tolerant (yet), although now that he is devoted to watching each UFC PPV, the WEC events on Versus, the Strikeforce on Showtime and most other MMA which is televised, I hope he someday will be.

I am tolerant of his buying NASCAR memorabilia, although the amount I have spent on GSP and other MMA memorabilia far exceeds what he has spent and could have been used to purchase a used convertible I have seen parked up the road with a For Sale sign on it.

At any rate, WEC is so good now that I would cut off a digit rather than miss a single event.

Over the weekend I learned that my oldest grandson's first son will be named "Uriah (because this is the form of the name and spelling Cody prefers for his future son), Rush Willis," regardless of the fact that he is 16 1/2, single, and just a junior in high school at the present, he assured me it is only a matter of time until I will be so blessed to be a "great" grandmother.

The fact that Uriah is to be the first name and Rush the second did dishearten me a little, but goes to prove how popular WEC has become in my family.

Reed Harris is not the "face" of WEC which is a Zuffa owned organization since 2006, and with Dana White looming in the background threatening to increase its popularity soon it has been causing me a lot of concern for the future of free WEC events on TV.

The fact that the focus of WEC is completely tuned in on the fighters is very reassuring to me. The pay needs to be a lot more representative of the increased attention the organization and events are receiving though, and I know I am not alone in thinking that they are underpaid.

Fighters in WEC seem to fight at double the speed and intensity of their UFC brethren. Maybe the low pay has kept them hungrier, who knows what motivates them, except it couldn't be due to the low pay they have been/are receiving.

It appears from the MMA article that they have a great deal of devotion to Reed and that the feeling is mutual.

Dana White has become the face of MMA the world over, but not the humble Mr. Harris.

Harris does remind me of being the ultimate fan of the sport that Dana always has professed to be.

Although he and Dana once fought over obtaining Chuck Liddell, he does not to seem to have played favorites as Dana has, by becoming drinking and hanging out buddies with his individual fighters.

From having read about his relationship with the fighters it is clear that Reed does show an interest in them as individuals and thoroughly enjoys the close friendships he has developed with "the guys."

The guys obviously respect and feel exceptionally close to him as well, as evidenced to the pictures I have referred to previously.

When WEC is on I will now scour the graying haired men in the background trying to pick Reed out of the crowd of fans.

Finally I have found a business man other than my beloved grandfather, whom I can admire.

{Note: In the Getty images I could not find a single photo of Urijah, Miguel, Donald, Gary, or Reed Harris nor a single picture from a WEC fight. Therefore, I cropped what I hope is an anonymous photo of an MMA fight to represent WEC type fighting. I do not want to identify the fighters, though I am sure some reader will insist on doing this for me and pointing out that it is a UFC fighter from UFC 101,}