WEC’s Sept. 10 event postponed until Nov. 5
September 6, 2008 by Sam Caplan
The prospect of inclement weather in the form of Hurricane Ike has forced World Extreme Cagefighting officials to postpone its next week that had been scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 10 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla. until Wednesday, Nov. 5 at the same venue.
Denny Burkholder of CBSSports.com was the first to break the news, with the WEC sending out an official press release soon after.
“Due to the potential of a major hurricane hitting the South Florida area on Wednesday we were compelled to postpone the event,” WEC Vice President of Operations and Production Peter Dropick is quoted as saying in the press release. “For the safety of our fans, the fighters and our staff we felt it was in the best interest to make this decision.”
Hurricane Ike is currently a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 120 MPH that is moving west/southwest toward South Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center’s latest advisory. The storm is on track to have impact on the Florida Keys and South Florida this Tuesday into Wednesday.
“With Hurricane Ike approaching our area we have concern for the fans, fighters, our employees and the South Florida community in general,” Bernie Dillon, Sr. Vice President of Entertainment for the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino added. “We felt like it would be prudent and in everyone’s best interest to postpone the event. We certainly don’t want to cause any travelers or employees to get stranded here should we have a major storm.”
Wednesday’s WEC event had been scheduled to be headlined by a WEC featherweight title defense by Urijah Faber vs. Mike Thomas Brown as well as a WEC middleweight title rematch between incumbent Paulo Filho and challenger Chael Sonnen.
Refunds for the postponed event will be available at the point of purchase.
Disappointing news… I was looking forward to another excellent WEC event.
Safety first.
I am kind of surprised they are going to wait nearly two months. Fighters now either have to decide to extend their training camp or taper off and then have an abbreviated training camp. You’re going to see several fighters scheduled for Sept. 10 not make it to Nov. 5. If it was a scheduling conflict issue with the venue, they should have moved the show to the Hard Rock in Vegas 30 days later or less.
I was just going to post that same thing Sam.
Why not simply move this to Vegas, as opposed to hitting these fighters with a huge delay.
Makes no sense.
ouch..
I live in South Florida…
-_-
I was going.
I wish they would honor tickets from the old date somehow. Does anyone know if this is possible? I ended up with great seats and they will be hard to get again (WEC must have released lots of good floor seats as time went by because the ones I got were much better than any available during pre-sale and into the general sales period).
It is also annoying that hotels will cost at least twice as much in November.
Sam, I think revenue is the issue for not moving it to Vegas. 5,500 seats versus 1,500 is a big difference. They will be able to pay most of the purse, if not all of it, solely through ticket sales. In any event, thanks for posting this info.
this sucks because I already bought tickets to this event and now I’m screwed because of these hurricanes. I’m tired of these damn hurricanes. This would have been my first big MMA event i’ve ever been to.
D Bess….you will get a refund, unless you bought them 3-rd party. That would suck if so!
We are going to get a refund. Just sucks because I’ve been waiting patiently for this event and then I get let down by some hurricane.
WEC needs to merge with the UFC.
Enjoy that belt a little longer, Paulo.
i didn’t have tickets or anything.. i just think it sucks that i’ll have to wait longer to see another good WEC card T_T