The AP reports:
World Extreme Cagefighting will stage its first pay-per-view event April 24, scheduling a star-stacked card for its first attempt to persuade mixed martial arts fans to pay $44.99 for its fights.
Urijah Faber will meet featherweight champion Jose Aldo in the main event of WEC 48 from Sacramento, Calif., the lighter-weight MMA promotion’s leaders told The Associated Press before Wednesday’s announcement.
Former featherweight champion Mike Brown also will meet Manny Gamburyan at Arco Arena, and lightweight champion Ben Henderson will fight Donald Cerrone in a rematch of their acclaimed October bout.
Our own Michael Rome has done the best argument against this decision:
I've long been a skeptic of the WEC's prospects for PPV, but I understand why they need to start running PPV events. If they can't succeed on PPV they won't be financially viable in the long haul, and they can't count on Zuffa subsidizing them just to keep Versus occupied forever. However, May is a bad month for an obvious reason: there is way too much competition for the WEC to succeed in May.
Take a look at the tentative PPV schedule for May in the United States:
May 1: Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Shane Mosley
May 8: UFC 113--Lyoto Machida vs. Shogun Rua, Forrest Griffin vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
May 15: (Presumably WEC)
May 23: WWE Judgment Day
May 29: UFC 114--Rampage Jackson vs. Rashad Evans
Three major events will already strain the wallets of fight fans in May. WEC should wait until June, where a single UFC card in Vancouver is all they'll really be competing with, and it doesn't look like that card will have anything big in the main event slot anyway.
For my part, I think the WEC has made the best possible matches for this event, given their roster. But I too am extremely skeptical about the WEC's ability to fly as a stand alone PPV draw, regardless of the timing.
WEC 48: Aldo vs. Faber coverage