Special Feature
WEC Forever | The Legacy of ‘The Little Blue Cage’ in the UFC
Reflecting On The Impact Of The WEC As One Of Its Final Reps Bids The Sport Farewell
When Cub Swanson lays his gloves down in the center of the Octagon on Saturday night, bringing a close to a 22-year career that has already seen him inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame for his UFC 207 banger with DooHo Choi, it will leave Rani Yahya as the lone remaining fighter to have competed in the WEC still active on the UFC roster. Given that the 41-year-old Brazilian hasn’t fought in nearly two years, Swanson’s swan song feels like the end of an era, one that some fans will always remember fondly, and others will never be able to fully understand.
I’ve always thought of the lasting affection people have for the WEC in the same vein as discovering a band, television show, or actor before they break out; having been with them from the beginning before many others had caught on. Sure, a number of the biggest names to compete inside the little blue cage matriculated to the UFC and became household names with the wider MMA audience, but for those of us that saw them competing in the WEC, we felt a different, closer bond like when you stumbled into a tiny show of a band that’s now on top of the world or bought a seat on the Michael B. Jordan bandwagon during the first season of The Wire.
WATCH: Cub Swanson's Fight Playlist On UFC FIGHT PASS
Fight fans remember the final WEC event, the bantamweight and featherweight divisions being added to the UFC at the start of 2011, complete with Dominick Cruz and Jose Aldo installed as champions. They recall Anthony Pettis landing “The Showtime Kick” on Benson Henderson — still the coolest move I’ve seen executed in real time — and those two being joined by Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, Danny “Last Call” Castillo, and a handful of other lightweights joining the UFC roster as well.
What often gets lost in the shuffle when talking about the impact of the WEC and host of talent that funneled from the regional promotion that was purchased by the UFC’s then-parent company Zuffa in 2006 was that the WEC wasn’t “just the little guys” that whole time.
Before he became a UFC fighter and one of the best analysts in the company’s history, Brian Stann was a WEC light heavyweight champion, and one of two intriguing prospects, along with his rival, Steve Cantwell, to shuttle over to the UFC in early December 2008 when the 205-pound weight class was shuttered in the WEC.
My introduction to Chael Sonnen didn’t come when he was trying to hustle his way forward in the UFC middleweight division, or once he found his niche as “The Bad Guy” in his feud with Anderson Silva, but rather in his odd title series with Paulo Filho in the WEC. Before Sonnen argued that he didn’t tap against Silva at UFC 117, he debated whether his screams of pain while getting armbarred by Filho at WEC 31 constituted a verbal submission.
RELATED: Cub Swanson Feels Ready For Retirement
The referee felt that they did, Filho was declared the winner, but a rematch was quickly booked in order to quell the controversy. Unfortunately, personal issues interrupted Filho’s rise to stardom, with the rematch eventually being a non-title affair that Sonnen won handily; Filho was said to have shipped Sonnen the WEC title afterwards.
WEC had welterweights too, and one of the best fights I saw as I really began my emersion into this sport came at WEC 35, when the defending champ, “The Natural Born Killer” Carlos Condit faced off with Hiromitsu Miura in Las Vegas.
Note: after the opening bout of WEC 35 went the distance, the next nine fights, including all three title fights, ended inside the distance… just a wildly entertaining show from start to finish; check it out on UFC FIGHT PASS.
Condit was 24, had already successfully defended the title a couple times and looked every bit the part of someone that could join the UFC ranks and have success, while Miura was a coming off consecutive wins and gave the Albuquerque native all he could handle before Condit finally ended things late in the fourth.
The WEC welterweight division was shuttered in February 2009. Condit made his UFC debut in April of that year in a main event pairing with Martin “The Hitman” Kampmann, losing a debated split decision before rattling off five straight wins, including claiming the interim UFC welterweight title, and facing Georges St-Pierre in a title unification bout at UFC 154.
RELATED: Best Of Aldo In WEC
But the legacy of the promotion is always going to be the wealth of talent that shifted from the lighter ranks into the UFC following WEC 53 in Glendale, Arizona.
While Jose Aldo cemented his standing as the inaugural UFC featherweight champion by successfully defending his WEC title a few months earlier against Manvel Gamburyan, Dominick Cruz cemented his place atop the new UFC bantamweight division by doing the same against Scott Jorgensen in the penultimate fight in WEC history. It was vintage Cruz, who really found his style and himself after moving to bantamweight in the WEC, and probably doesn’t get enough credit for being an absolute stud in the promotion before his weight class was shifted to the UFC.
And the main event, a lightweight title showdown between champion Benson “Smooth” Henderson and challenger Anthony “Showtime” Pettis, remains an incredibly fitting capstone to the WEC’s time because not only was it thoroughly competitive fight that featured one of the most “Oh My God!” moments in MMA history, but it remains a touchpoint for not underestimating talent just because they’re not competing on the biggest stage in the sport.
Pettis earned the unanimous decision win to close things out as the WEC lightweight champion, which was supposed to earn him an automatic shot at the UFC lightweight title in 2011, but then Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard battled to a draw on New Year’s Day, which then caused a ripple effect that postponed Pettis’ title shot and ultimately landed him opposite Clay Guida in his promotional debut, which he lost.
Watch UFC 327 And Every UFC Event Live On Paramount+
Henderson debuted four months after losing the title at UFC 129, beating Mark Bocek. After beating Jim Miller in August, he out-worked Guida in the co-main event of the UFC on FOX one-off special in November 2011, establishing himself as the No. 1 contender in the lightweight division. Three months later, he edged out Edgar to claim the UFC lightweight title, which he would hold onto until August 2013, when he was tapped out by… Anthony Pettis.
While the champions and established names like Cerrone and Urijah Faber shifting from the WEC to the UFC captured the immediate headlines, the real lasting legacy of the promotion — in my opinion — is the amount of elite talent that was present in the promotion and continued to grow and develop and flourish once given the chance on the bigger stage.
Demetrious Johnson | UFC Hall Of Fame Class Of 2026
Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there`s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world`s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!
Demetrious Johnson | UFC Hall Of Fame Class Of 2026
/
Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson was a talented late arrival in the WEC ranks, who shifted to the UFC roster, challenged for bantamweight gold, and then became the gold standard for the flyweight division when it was introduced in the UFC in 2012; he’ll be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame later this year.
Joseph Benavidez was the second-best bantamweight in the world during the final years of the WEC and the initial year of the division’s existence in the UFC, and then landed in the same position at flyweight once the 125-pound weight class was built in the UFC, losing to Johnson by split decision in the inaugural flyweight title fight at UFC 152.
Through the first 11 years of his career, the only people Benavidez lost to were Cruz twice and Johnson twice, with the last three of those matchups all coming with gold on the line. Some will see that and wince; I see it and am reminded of how dang good “Joe B.” was right until the very end.
Future champ Renan Barao debuted at WEC 49 in Edmonton and tapped out future flyweight title challenger Chris Cariaso in the first bout of the final WEC event.
Dustin Poirier went 1-1 as a lightweight in the WEC, shifted to featherweight to start his UFC tenure, becoming a contender, and then returned to the lightweight ranks, where he put together an outstanding career that included an interim title win, two BMF title shots, and countless standout moments.
Just in the three final weight classes to shift to the UFC roster after 2010, more than 15 former WEC fighters have held or challenged for UFC gold, with athletes like Chad Mendes, Ricardo Lamas, and “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung becoming fixtures in the featherweight division, and Michael McDonald and Eddie Wineland facing Barao for the interim bantamweight strap.
And then there are guys like Swanson, who wraps things up this weekend with his 45th career fight and remains inextricably linked to the WEC despite never holding or even challenging for championship gold with the promotion before following a similar path during his UFC tenure.
WATCH ON UFC FIGHT PASS: 10 Classic WEC Bouts
Swanson was 23 when he stepped into the WEC cage for the first time, beating Tommy Lee to move to 10-1. He fought in the little blue cage seven more times, earning four wins while falling to a trio of iconic talents in WEC history: Jens Pulver, the former UFC lightweight champion who helped bring eyes to the promotion when he dropped to featherweight after his coaching appearance on TUF 5; Aldo, and Mendes.
After dropping his UFC debut to Lamas, “Killer Cub” went on a six-fight winning streak that included victories over Charles Oliveira, Dustin Poirier, Dennis Siver, and Jeremy Stephens; the kind of run that would very well earn you a title shot more often than naught. Instead, Lamas got a shot, and then Mendes got a second championship opportunity, while Swanson got a main event assignment against Frankie Edgar in Austin, who halted his winning streak.
UFC Fight Pass: Jose Aldo vs. Urijah Faber WEC 48
Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there`s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world`s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!
UFC Fight Pass: Jose Aldo vs. Urijah Faber WEC 48
/
Just as he did throughout his WEC days, Swanson dusted himself off and got back to it, putting together another four-fight winning streak that included his 2016 Fight of the Year win over DooHo Choi, which has since been enshrined in the UFC Hall of Fame.
The right win at the right moment never quite came for the now 42-year-old featherweight, but it never deterred him, nor did it change his approach. In a lot of ways, Swanson stands as the lasting avatar for the WEC fighters that migrated to the UFC and the promotion as a whole, really: someone that was underrated and discounted, but immediately showed he belonged, then continued to give his everything, with pride, class, and an abundance of skill, right up until the very end.
I don’t know that we’re going to get Swanson pulling off a “Showtime Kick” this weekend in Miami against Nate Landwehr to bring the connection home completely, but what I can say with absolute certainty is that “Killer Cub” will leave it all out there, as he always has, in pursuit of beautiful destruction and the entertainment of the masses.
And when he steps out of the Octagon for the final time on Saturday night, it’s going to feel like the end of an era on two fronts.
But just as Swanson’s legacy lives on through his timeless performances, so too will the legacy of the WEC and its impact on the UFC and the sport as a whole.
#WECForever
UFC 327: Procházka vs Ulberg took place live from Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida on April 11, 2026. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!