WEC 53: Henderson vs. Pettis is an upcoming mixed martial arts event held by World Extreme Cagefighting scheduled to take place on December 16, 2010 at Jobing.com Arena in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Arizona.
The event will be the first time that Zuffa has hosted an event in Arizona.
Official Fight Card
Main Card
* Lightweight bout: Poland Bart Palaszewski vs. Iran Kamal Shalorus
* Lightweight bout: United States Donald Cerrone vs. Canada Chris Horodecki
* Bantamweight Championship bout: United States Dominick Cruz (c) vs. United States Scott Jorgensen
* Lightweight Championship bout: United States Ben Henderson (c) vs. United States Anthony Pettis
Preliminary card
* Bantamweight bout: Brazil Renan Barão vs. United States Chris Cariaso
* Lightweight bout: United States Ricardo Lamas vs. Brazil Yuri Alcantara
* Lightweight bout: United States Danny Castillo vs. United States Will Kerr
* Bantamweight bout: United States Eddie Wineland vs. United States Ken Stone
* Bantamweight bout: England Brad Pickett vs. Canada Ivan Menjivar
* Lightweight bout: United States Jamie Varner vs. United States Shane Roller
* Lightweight bout: People's Republic of China Zhang Tie Quan vs. United States Danny Downes
Background
This event is unique in that the WEC and AMP Energy allowed fans to choose the location of the event. The fans were given 30 options and the finalists were Milwaukee, Nashville and Phoenix.
During the live telecast of WEC 50, Phoenix was announced as the winner of the contest.
Maciej Jewtuszko was expected to face Ricardo Lamas at this event, but Jewtuszko had to withdraw as he suffered a broken hand during training. Lamas will now face Yuri Alcantara.
This will be the final WEC event as the promotion will merge with the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 2011. Dominick Cruz will defend his title for the last time and the winner of the Cruz-Jorgensen bout will be recognized as the UFC Bantamweight Champion. The winner of the Henderson-Pettis bout will face the winner of UFC 125's Frankie Edgar-Gray Maynard bout in a superfight to unify the WEC and UFC lightweight championships.
