Wednesday, August 26, 2009
VINDICATOR STAFF REPORT
YOUNGSTOWN — It’s unlikely the World Extreme Cagefighting organization will be coming to the Covelli Centre this year.
The WEC event scheduled for Sept. 2 at the downtown arena was postponed Monday after it was disclosed that one of the participants in the main event, Ben Henderson, injured a knee in training.
With so little time for a replacement to adequately train in time to face Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone for the WECs interim lightweight championship, the WEC chose to postpone the event.
According to Covelli Centre executive director Eric Ryan, the Versus television network, which broadcasts WEC events, dictated a new date of Oct. 10.
That created a problem for Ryan, who has a contract for a motorcycle ice racing show at the Covelli Centre on Oct. 10.
Ryan, on Monday, said he wasn’t very confident he could change the ice racing event.
On Tuesday WEC founder and general manager Reed Harris responded to an interview request with an e-mail and all but confirmed the Oct. 10 event would not be in Youngstown.
“At this time … it does not appear as if the card will take place in Youngstown,” he wrote.
“Donald Cerrone and I spent some time there promoting this fight, and we saw that Youngstown has some great fans,” Harris wrote. “It is a great fight town, and it remains on our radar for future events.”
Online ticket sales were extremely slow for the event. As of Aug. 18 many floor seats still remained available.
However, a similar event earlier this year produced a huge walkup crowd, and Ryan said Monday that he thought “we would have done pretty well” with ticket sales for the Sept. 2 show.
Ryan did not return a phone call Tuesday night.