The WEC will make its presence known in the Southwest on Wednesday night as they move into the Santa Ana Star Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Three championship title fights will headline the card with Carlos Condit defending his title against Carlo Prater, a fighter who has once defeated Condit. Also on the line is the Lightweight title in which Rob McCullough will defend against former UFC prospect Jamie Varner. In the third title bout, Featherweights Chase Beebe and Miguel Torres will tangle for the title. Slated to make his WEC debut, Leonard Garcia will take on K-1 Hero’s veteran Hiroyuki Takaya to round out the top fights of the night. It looks to be a solid card full of excitement.

Carlo Prater vs. Carlos Condit
Welterweight Title Bout

One of the more exciting bouts of the night will be the main event featuring Prater vs. Condit. Prater is one of the only fighters to have defeated Condit, and it was in quick fashion via a triangle choke back in September of 2004. Condit went on to bigger and better things, defeating some very good talent on the road to winning the Welterweight title in the WEC. Prater continued to show some impressive skills, but never broke into a bigger promotion.

There are some interesting pieces to both their skillsets here that should prove to be advantageous to Condit. Prater is primarily a submission fighter who continues to be good on the ground. In his recent bouts however, he has shown a degradation of his finishing skills, taking many fights the distance and winning by decision. Carlos has only gone to decision once in his career, and it’s highly unlikely that it will happen again, so look for Condit to push the pace.

Condit and Prater are both very good on the ground, but Condit does have much better striking skills. He has the ability to finish, and should take out Prater. Prater, however, does have a good shot at defeating Condit since Prater is very tough to finish. I’ll look for this to head to the late rounds before ending.

Leland’s Prediction: Carlos Condit via TKO, 3rd round

Rob McCullough vs. Jamie Varner
Lightweight Title Bout

This is a fight that I think has fallen under the radar as far as upset possibilities go. Varner has a much better ground game than McCullough. In fact, McCullough really hasn’t had to prove his ground game in any of his recent fights. Varner, on the other hand, has a solid ground game that features some excellent wrestling skills that could prove to be tough for “Razor” to deal with.

The biggest difference here is McCullough’s standup. His striking is very good, and his Muay Thai credentials only further solidify his standing a great striker in the weight class. Can Jamie Varner avoid becoming another Richard Crunkilton? It’s tough to say, but we do know that McCullough will come out strong.

Another stat that sticks out is that McCullough has never been finished, and he has proven himself early in his career that he can withstand the ground game against other grapplers. Crunkilton was going to be that test for his ground game, but he was unable to get McCullough down.

There have been some good interviews with Varner suggesting that he has been training very hard, improving his grappling, and coming into this fight with a smart gameplan. For that, I’m going to go with Varner.

Leland’s Prediction: Jamie Varner via submission, 2nd round

Chase Beebe vs. Miguel Torres
Featherweight Title

Another fantastic matchup for the WEC will be the Chase Beebe vs. Miguel Torres clash. Beebe proved that he has fantastic submission defense when he nearly got kneebar’d by Rani Yahya, then survived multiple submission attempts throughout the fight while beating Yahya senseless. Beebe will come in with great wrestling, solid striking, and good ground and pound skills.

Torres is a formidable opponent due to his jiu-jitsu skills being so well-rounded. He’s also currently 20-1, but his knock could be said to be his strength of schedule. He hasn’t fought tough talent in his weight class, but then again, Beebe also hasn’t had a plethora of talent to take on either.

This seems to once again be a wrestler vs. a grappler matchup, the same style matchup that Yahya lost. Beebe has great submission defense, and he has never been finished. Torres has awesome submission ability and good technical striking. I’m going to go for the upset here.

Leland’s Prediction: Miguel Torres via submission, 3rd round

The main card wasn’t all that unbelievable, but it did have some standout fights on it.

Crunkilton came out with a good combo and head kick to start it out, but McCullough countered with a barrage. McCullough landed a huge right that knocked Crunkilton down and then the onslaught continued. Crunkilton would scramble to his feet only to get rocked again and again. Mir was flabergasted at the fact Crunkilton was trying to stand with McCullough and literally was saying “What the hell is he doing?”. McCullough easily overpowered Crunkilton with his standup.

Chase Beebe vs. Rani Yahya delivered. Rani Yahya came out, and tangled with Beebe from the get go. A small exchange and Yahya shot the legs and got Beebe to the ground. As Beebe was trying to transition on top of Yahya, Rani grabbed Beebe’s leg as he tried to scramble to his feet and sunk in a great kneebar. Beebe was visibly in tremendous pain, but was able to slip out of it. Yahya continued to try submissions throughout the first round, mainly armbars, but failed to do so, but won the round. For the next four rounds, Beebe put on a wrestling clinic is stuffing Yahya’s ju-jitsu. Beebe was able to get Yahya’s back and sink hooks in for 3 out of the 4 remaining rounds and basically nibble away at Yahya with small jabs and choke attempts. Yahya became gassed in the 3rd, and barely hung on by the 5th round.

Stann vs. Billington was somewhat of a joke. Everyone expected Stann to come out and dominate, and that’s exactly what happened. He tagged Billington early and was able to just punch him down to the ground and win easily with some ground and pound. Stann’s size over Billington was incredible, and the reach advantage was just too much from the get go. It was clear Billington’s standup was much too slow, and allowed Stann to basically pick a spot and hit it.

Miguel Torres vs. Jeff Bedard went much as it was expected. Sherdog actually has Miguel Torres ranked thanks to Jordan Breen’s great knowledge of the low weight classes, and it was rumored Shooto was trying to obtain him. He came to the WEC, and dominated a ground and pound wrestler in Jeff Bedard. Bedard took Torres down early and Torres worked off his back, sinking in a triangle choke from the bottom easily.

Bryan Baker vs. Jesse Forbes wasn’t a bad fight. A lot of people did not know who Baker was, but he proved it tonight. Forbes came out with a straight punch that rocked Baker. Forbes went in for the kill, but Baker was able to fend off the attack and eventually outlast the assault. Baker was able to throw some big punches and land a few. The biggest advantage for Baker was his wrestling. He was able to dominate Forbes on the ground, and eventually sunk the hook in and flatten Forbes on his stomach, mounted on his back. He rained down a load of punches and the fight was over. Good win for Baker, keep an eye out.

Blas Avena vs. Joe Benoit, Benoit had Clay Guida in his corner and it immediately had me thinking this may last a while if it comes down to cardio, but Blas came out much like he did against Tiki, with pure adrenaline. Blas immediately grabbed Benoit’s head and sunk in a guillotine choke that ended the fight 29 seconds in.

Overall, not a bad fight card, but not unbelievably spectacular. Mir’s commentating wasn’t half bad, but in some of the fights, the action was happening so quickly, he couldn’t keep up, notably the Baker vs. Forbes fight. Mir’s sidekick was pretty horrible, saying some of the chokes were sunk in deep when they weren’t even in, but overall, his play by play wasn’t bad. That’s what Mir is there for, color commentary.

They announced the new WEC/Versus deal during a break as said above and had a good interview with Urijah Faber, Faber did mention he had heard Curran say he was going to knock him out, and Faber replied by stating that he didn’t think Curran had knocked anyone out… ever.

“Razor” Rob McCullough vs. Rich “Cleat” Crunkilton
(WEC Lightweight Championship match)
Interview with ''Razor'' Rob McCullough is here... done by our very own Matt Kaplan from Kodiak MMA.

“Razor” Rob McCullough and Rich “Cleat” Crunkilton are two top lightweights who have stopped all of their WEC opponents and boast unblemished records in the WEC. Both will ride into this match on multi-year win streaks, one of which will unfortunately come to an end.

Look for this fight to be an exciting one. By his own admission, WEC lightweight champ “Razor” Rob McCullough gets “pissed off” when fans boo a lack of action, and says that when he fights, he gets “in there to have fun and entertain people, as well as kick the shit out of someone.” That’s what I like to hear.

In Rich “Cleat” Crunkilton, McCullough faces a very tough guy. In his only loss (to Hermes Franca back in 2003), Crunkilton was in an arm bar late in the final round that actually dislocated his elbow. Crunkilton let out a scream that reached the rafters, but he refused to tap.

Jens Pulver, the UFC’s first ever lightweight champion, is making his highly-anticipated WEC debut against Cub Swanson in what many expect to produce the next challenger for WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber.

Dropping down to 145 lbs for this match – and most likely for good – is the Miletich-trained Pulver, who suffered two stoppages losses at 155 lbs. in the UFC (KO’d by Joe Lauzon; choked out by BJ Penn). Jens has fought seven times at or below 145, scoring 6 KOs and 1 submission, so I expect a much better showing from featherweight Jens.

Those who are picking Jens in this fight are most likely doing so with expectations of a KO or TKO, which I can understand. For a guy his size, he packs a monster of a punch and has recorded wins as a professional boxer. Keep in mind, though, that Jens lives and dies by the KO; 13 of his 21 wins have come by knockout, but so have 5 of his 8 losses.

“I can’t wait to put my skills on display in the WEC. Cub Swanson is a tough opponent, and I plan on showing why my nickname is ‘Lil Evil’ by delivering a performance fans will remember,” an always smiling Jens promised.

Across the cage from Jens will be a very tough, very athletic Cub Swanson, who acknowledges Jens’ place in MMA history but remains focused on reaching the top of the WEC featherweight heap: “Jens was a great MMA star and one of the game’s legends, but my time is now. Everybody knows both of us come to fight, but ‘Lil Evil’ is gonna run into a bigger evil in Cub Swanson. I’m going to show the world why I’m the best featherweight in the WEC with a knockout over Jens.”

A knockout over Jens? That’s right, folks. I’m surprised any time I hear that someone actually wants to trade punches with Jens, so I asked Cub about it in a recent interview. His answer was pretty simple: “I feel that the people want to see me knock him out, so that's the plan.” Cub says that he’ll look to take the fight with Jens to the ground “just to mix it up” but feels that the only way he’ll get respect is to stand and bang with Jens. I can’t wait for this fight!

Jens may be the more powerful puncher of the two, but momentum is certainly on the side of Cub Swanson, a jiu-jitsu brown belt with Muay Thai training who lost his first pro fight in 2004 and has since rattled off 11 consecutive wins. Most recently, Cub faced the very tough Micah Miller, against whom Cub exhibited excellent submission defense, as well as fast, strong hands that fly in dangerous combinations.

Cub Swanson is young and hungry and realizes that a win over Jens will make him “a household name.” Cub’s eyes are firmly set on the WEC featherweight championship, but standing in his way is the sprawl-and-brawl master himself, Jens Pulver. Are Jens’ best days in the rear view mirror, or can the legend’s trademark sprawl-and-brawl stop the younger, faster Cub Swanson?

Chase Beebe vs. Rani Yahya
(WEC Bantamweight Championship match)

In addition to the WEC lightweight belt being up for grabs at WEC 30, so too will the bantamweight belt, as champion Chase Beebe and Rani Yahya are scheduled to get it on for 135-pound supremacy.

Chase Beebe is a four-time Illinois high-school state champion wrestler, who – despite earning 9 submission wins in 11 of his pro wins – lists “knockout” as his favorite technique. I haven’t seen too many of Beebe’s fights (only 2 to be exact), but as you might expect, he’s very aggressive on the ground and has a knack for finishing off his opponent with the rear naked choke.

“Rani is an impressive fighter with great grappling skills. I don’t care if I beat him by knockout or with a submission, no one is taking the title away from me,” Chase guaranteed.

“Great” may very well be the apex of understatement when describing Yahya’s fight game. The 22-year-old Rickson Gracie Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt is a three-time World Brazilian jiu-jitsu champ and the 2007 Abu Dhabi world champion. Making matters worse for Chase is the fact that Yahya is dropping down from bantamweight for this fight and should be very strong at 135 lbs.

Against a tough, well-rounded Mark Hominick at WEC 28, Yahya needed just over a minute to choke out the Team Tompkins product in the very first round. Not surprising at all, considering his jiu-jitsu skills. What worried me a bit was how Yahya shot in on Hominick almost desperately. He practically dove in and his shots came with virtually zero set-up. As a result, Hominick was able to sting Yahya with some crisp punches. Yahya forged ahead and eventually got the takedown and the submission win, but I’ll be looking to see if Yahya how Yahya sets up his takedowns in this fight.

“Beebe is an impressive wrestler, but my submissions will be too much for him to handle. I’m not leaving the cage without the belt wrapped around my waist,” said Yahya, and I tend to agree.

If, however, Yahya dives in on Beebe like he did against Hominick, Beebe needs to capitalize on this and punish Yahya with punches. As I said earlier, Beebe loves going for the KO, so that will probably be his best bet in defeating Yahya. Then again, Yahya has never been TKO’d or KO’d, so this could be a tough night for the champ.

When more fights for the WEC 30 card are confirmed, I'll get back to you. Until then, make a note to tune in for all the WEC 30 action on September 5 at 9 PM ET on the Versus Channel.

The World Extreme Cagefighting organization will be LIVE from Las Vegas, Nevada at the Joint Hard Rock Hotel on September 5th. The event will feature two title bouts and one featherweight contender bout. The WEC, as of late, has had a boom in viewership and attention as the UFC grows, and the WEC gains more popular fighters, sponsors, and access to cable television. All WEC events are featured on the Versus television network as well, appealing fans because there is no PPV events on the WEC schedule. MMA-Analyst.com will have previews, predictions, and coverage of all of the upcoming WEC events. We will provide in-depth analysis of each fight card just as we have for UFC 74. Please keep an eye here for more upcoming events. Now, let's get into the fight card for WEC 30:

WEC 30 Fight Card:
Rob "Razor" McCullough vs. Richard "Cleat" Crunkilton
Chase Beebe vs. Rani Yahya
Jens "Little Evil" Pulver vs. Cub Swanson

This fight card is shaping up to be a pretty damn good one, featuring two title bouts and a featherweight contender bout. Let's go inside each matchup.

Rob "Razor" McCullough vs. Richard "Cleat" Crunkilton
WEC Lightweight Championship Bout
Let's start off with the current WEC Lightweight Champion, Rob McCullough. Rob is a straight Muay Thai standup fighter who has won 5 World Muay Thai championships in his fighting career. He fights out of Huntington Beach, California, so he's a Team Punishment fighter out of Tito Ortiz's camp. Rob just recently won the Lightweight title at WEC 25 with a victory over Kit Cope, another champion Muay Thai fighter. Rob's main strenght is his kicks. Since he is a Muay Thai Champion, he has great form and is able to get kicks off fairly quickly and with some power. He also uses very crisp combinations with his kicks and hands as seen when he fought   Olaf Alfonso at WEC 19. He was able to lay a kick into Olaf's midsection and then deliver a tremendous right that broke Olaf's jaw. He has a very good sprawl that he uses as his takedown defense. He is able to avoid wrestlers and grapplers with the sprawl. He also has tremendous cardio, but who expects anything less coming out of Team Punishment? His chin is very strong. In a number of fights, he has shown that he can take a punch and deliver a counter almost always landing. Here is a highlight reel of fights McCullough has fought, mainly showing some of his technique.

Richard "Cleat" Crunkilton is a submission wrestling fighter fighting out of the American Kickboxing Academy. His only blemish on his record was a decision loss to Hermes Franca at UFC 42 - Sudden Impact. After that loss, he rattled off 6 straight victories, 3 by TKO/KO and 3 by Submission victory. Crunkilton has excellent ground and pound game, along with a very good kicking game up top, much like McCullough. Crunkilton's main trait is his takedowns and wrestling. In most of his fights, he aims to catch kicks or fake his own kick into a takedown. He uses fakes to flinch opponents and then shoots the opponent's legs for the takedown. In most of his fights, he uses this technique within the first 30 seconds of the fight. He has a very good transition game on the ground in which he can move from full guard to side mount rather quickly. He has a tremendous ground and pound style that will be the key to winning this matchup. 

For this matchup, McCullough won't have too many weaknesses at all that Crunkilton can expose. The only real blemish I can see in McCullough's game right now is his record. He has fought a lot of sub .500 fighters. Kit Cope is 1-4, granted he's fought some top guys in the WEC and Kenny Florian who is in the UFC. His opponents who aren't sub .500 are barely above a .500 winning percentage. Ryan Healy is the only recent win that is considerably above the 50% mark. McCullough will also be fighting against a wrestler in Crunkilton who is very used to catching kicks and taking down his opponent. He also has devastating elbows and with his transition game on the ground, has a very effective ground and pound that McCullough will have trouble with. McCullough's cardio comes into play here tremendously. If McCullough can avoid the takedown with his great defense, look for a 1st or 2nd round KO/TKO from McCullough. I believe Crunkilton will be able to take down McCullough, and possibly ground and pound him. Crunkilton has beaten bigger and stronger fighters before in convincing fashion. Both fighters have padded records though. Crunkilton has fought a majority of sub .500 fighters, more than McCullough. He did manage to decision a surging Hermes Franca, the only fighter on both fighter's records that has any real skill to gauge this fight on besides McCullough losing to Josh Thomson back in 2002 by decision. So, who will win this battle of the unprovens? I call them unprovens because with as many sub .500 fighters as they have fought, this is really their first real competition for both of them in a long time. If McCullough's takedown defense prevails, look for McCullough to win this in the 1st or 2nd round by TKO/KO. I believe Crunkilton will get the takedown though, he has some dynamic ways of doing so. Look for Crunkilton to take it into the later rounds, it's a stretch, but Crunkilton has more experience dealing with aggressive fighters such as McCullough, and stronger fighters as well. All scenarios aside, McCullough has a superb takedown defense, great cardio, strength, and speed on his feet. Look for a McCullough TKO win in the 1st or 2nd round.

Final Prediction: Tough Decision. I'm taking.... Rob McCullough, 2nd round TKO/KO.

Chase Beebe vs. Rani Yahya
WEC Bantamweight Championship Bout
Chase Beebe is essentially a "choke" artist, winning nearly all of his fight by Rear Naked Choke. He sports a record of 11-1. Chase Beebe's background is extensively in wrestling. He is a four-time Illinois State Wrestling Champion. He is primarily a ground fighter, but he does have some standup and a small amount of submission skill. There is little video of Chase Beebe online, and I haven't seen enough of him to justify a good review of his skill then what I have already stated. I do believe that this is a very bad matchup for Chase Beebe. Let's move on to his opponent.

Rani Yahya is a different story. He is a well-known black belt in ju-jitsu in the WEC. He is the 2007 Abu Dhabi grappling champion in his weight class of 65kg. He recently submitted Mark Hominick at WEC 28 in the 1st round by rear naked choke. Rani has also fought in such events as    K-1 HERO'S in Japan, and participated in numerous ju-jitsu competitions and serves as an instructor in ju-jitsu.

Chase is an aggressive fighter on the ground, but if we've learned anything from great ju-jitsu, it counters wrestling very well if used properly. I'm looking for Rani to take advantage of Beebe's wrestling game and pull off a submission victory in the 1st or 2nd round. Rani is very aggressive in his submission game. He literally transitions from one submission to the other with very quick movements. In his matchup with      Kazuya Yasuhiro in K-1, he tried to pull a submission off in the first 10 seconds of the fight, and then transitioned from legs to chokes and so forth until he sunk in a Brabo Choke. Very skilled, and for as small as he is, very aggressive. I'm looking for Rani to win this via 1st round submission victory.

Final Prediction: Rani Yahya via 1st round submission

Jens "Little Evil" Pulver vs. Cub Swanson
This is probably the most anticipated fight on the card for me. Jens Pulver is coming off a horrible loss to BJ Penn at TUF Finale 5 via submission in which Pulver looked horrible against the ground attack. Pulver has had two straight losses in his last two fights, one to Penn and the other by KO in the 1st round by TUF veteran Joe Lauzon. Pulver is trained out of Miletich Martial Arts in Bettendorf, Iowa. He's a world class boxer with some wrestling skills for body control. He is most notably known for holding the first Lightweight UFC Championship belt and defending that belt against BJ Penn at UFC 35 in a much publicized bout in which Pulver was considered a huge underdog. Pulver went the distance proved he was the champion by defeating Penn by decision. Of course, in the eventual rematch, Penn dominated him. What most people don't know about Pulver is that he won two state wrestling championships in Idaho and wrestling briefly for Boise State University. He does have a prominent wrestling background to supplement his superb boxing skills. Pulver is known to have pioneered the technique of "Sprawl and Brawl" and is known for his defensive wrestling/striking skills.

Cub Swanson is an interesting fighter. He is on an unbelievable winning streak, compiling 10 straight wins. His most recent against Micah Miller, who had much better ju-jitsu than Swanson, was impressive in that Swanson was able to avoid every submission attempt Micah had to offer. He also convincingly won the standup and ground and pound battles during the matchup. Swanson has a brown-belt in ju-jitsu and a Muay Thai background. Swanson has above average ground skills, but not nearly as good as some of the better ju-jitsu guys in the game. He has above average striking and mixes in kicks and punches for combinations.

The lowdown on this fighter is that Swanson is the underdog, and a lot of people inside the MMA community think Pulver is just old and out of the game. A lot of fans believe Swanson will do away with Pulver fairly quickly. I am going to take the opposite view here. Pulver is dropping to a base 145 lbs. He has stated in the past he feels great at 145 and feels it's his best fight weight. Swanson is by no means an incredible striker. He is by no means an incredible ground fighter either. He tends to scramble on the ground, and it doesn't work to his advantage. Pulver is a defensive wrestler, much like some notable UFC fighter like Chuck Liddell. He uses his wrestling to counter submission attempts and then body control his opponent to a ground and pound position. The most notable difference in their styles in Pulver's striking ability is world renowned. He has heavy hands and they will only grow faster and more powerful as he drops to 145. Pulver also has plenty of wrestlers to train with at MFS in Iowa, and will have more ability to train against Swason-like opponents during his camp. I believe in the MMA community, Swanson is favored. I'm going to go ahead and pick Pulver to win via TKO/KO in the 2nd round. I think Pulver is going to show us one last flurry before his career is over.

Final Prediction: A "Little Evil" knockout win in the 2nd round

That concludes our WEC 30 preview, predictions, and analysis. I hope this gives a little bit of insight into the WEC fight card and fighters. These predictions, I feel, are a bit off the norm of what most of the community is expecting from this event. The McCullough vs. Crunkilton matchup is also a very tough fight that I believe Crunkilton has a great chance to win as well. The fact that a lot of these fighters have great records against a lot of bad fighters doesn't help in analyzing a fighter's skillset. Video helps tremendously, and fortunately, I do have some of these fights here in my possession. I hope you enjoy these, and it gives you some insight.

Check out the rest of the predictions here.