December fight cards a boost for Las Vegas economy

Clark Kent

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12-03-2009 09:35 AM:
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If you're a fight fan, this is a great month to come to Las Vegas. Over the next four weeks, there are three big MMA cards Sin City needs the help from The Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale, WEC 45 and UFC 108.

How about the deal offered by this Palms? Normally a concert at The Pearl and a one night stay runs $500. Wow! After the rodeo leaves town, the town dies until New Year's week. Clearly this is an attempt to lure someone to town.

It's a strange time in the nation's craziest city with the $8.5 billion MGM City Center opening on Dec. 16 during what essentially is a depression. Meanwhile, one of the city's legendary hotels, Binion's, the original host of the World Series of Poker, just announced it's closing 350 rooms.

On the MMA front, the UFC has likely lost some coverage. The Las Vegas Sun, the smaller of the two Sin City newspapers, just had massive firings. Gone is longtime columnist Ron Kantowski and UNLV basketball beat writer Rob Miech (good move, UNLV just started 6-0 for the first time since 1992-93). The staff is essentially left with Brett Okamoto and Jeff Haney covering the fight game. The paper has made a concerted effort to go more web-based and appeal to a younger audience. It's really the only newspaper site in the country, not using a blog as its MMA source, that posts fight news on a daily basis.

WEC 45, headlined by Ed Ratcliff and Donald Cerrone, faces a stiff challenge on Dec. 19. as Strikeforce rolls out another card in San Jose. Rumored bouts on Showtime include:

Cung Le v. Scott Smith
Josh Thompson v. Gilbert Melendez
Robbie Lawler v. Trevor Prangley
Matt Lindland v. Ronaldo Souza
Mo Lawal v. Mike Whitehead

That WEC 45 deal is hard to pass up. Fight tickets at The Palms are generally pretty pricey ($254-$504 for TUF 10 this weekend). It's like getting a five-star room for free. That said, the economy in Vegas is so bad that week that you can stay across the street in the much older Gold Coast for $42 a night. Rough times.



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Cagewriter is an MMA blog edited by Steve Cofield.
 
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