Confidence was high at World Extreme Cagefighting that 2010 was going to be a breakthrough year for the UFC’s sister promotion. After a stellar beginning, a night when Urijah Faber and Mike Brown were victorious and Benson Henderson defeated Jamie Varner to become lightweight champion, WEC is preparing for two loaded shows over the next seven weeks. Backed by strong ticket sales for Saturday’s WEC 47: Bowles vs. Cruz in Columbus and a “booming” pre-sale for WEC 48: Aldo vs. Faber, general manager Reed Harris is flexing his stroke with chin high and chest out, bullish in his belief that records are destined to fall.

“Just like [our fighters] focus on their fights, we focus on our cards, and we’re excited,” Harris said on a recent teleconference promoting WEC 47. “These next two events are pivotal events for us at WEC.”

Saturday night in Columbus a collection of current and former champions are competing on the same show: Brian Bowles, Miguel Torres and Jens Pulver. The competition isn’t pushovers either. Bowles makes his first bantamweight title defense since shocking Torres against 14-1 Dominick Cruz, the man who handed Joseph Benavidez his first defeat and whose lone loss came to Faber. Benavidez, incidentally, was the opponent selected for Torres and his initial bout since Bowles took his title and ended his 17-fight winning streak. And if you want proof that the featherweight division doesn’t end with Faber, Aldo or Brown, look no further then L.C. Davis versus Deividas Taurosevicius.

This card is so loaded that rising bantamweight Scott Jorgensen’s bout with Chad George has been relegated to prelim status. A show like this, airing on Versus, is the perfect springboard to WEC’s greatest challenge: selling an audience to spend $44.95 on its first pay-per-view, WEC 48 on April 24. Despite its knack for providing Fight of the Year-caliber contests, the WEC needs to bring in large numbers to invade the mainstream. Harris said early ticket sales for WEC 48 are “booming” and “a record.” The event is in Sacramento, the WEC’s top market thanks to hometown hero Faber’s drawing power. The challenge is convincing the rest of the country used to seeing the promotion on Versus (at least those without DirecTV) to spend money for what on paper looks like the biggest event in the company’s history.

“I think that in talking to the guys upstairs (at Zuffa, LLC headquarters), (UFC president) Dana (White) and all that, we all believe that this could be one of the best fights of the decade,” Harris said. “Everyone believes it’s as good a fight as anybody has offered on pay-per-view.

“We feel strongly that it’s not only going to be a great fight to watch, but we also feel it’s going to be a good value by the time we’re done putting the card together as far as people getting their money’s worth. So we’re actually very confident about it. I think we could maybe be upward of 15,000 or so (up from the 10,027 last month). I think it’s probably going to be the biggest event we’ve ever done.

“We all believe this could be one of the best fights of the decade. We feel strongly it will not only be a great fight to watch but also a good value. ”

If there’s any event that will set records, it’s this one. Under Aldo-Faber is a rematch between Henderson and Donald Cerrone, Brown-Manny Gamburyan, Anthony Njokuani -Shane Roller and Varner-Kamal Shalorus. Vital to WEC’s long-term prosperity is the marketing of its current stars and development of future studs to ease into the mainstream. I present five fighters on the cusp of greatness at FightMagazine.com.

****

Bowles rolls his eyes at the perception that he hit Torres with a lucky punch. “I don’t know what a lucky punch is,” he said. “You’re out there fighting and throwing punches and you’re trying to hit them, so I don’t see how that’s lucky.” … Torres completely overhauled his training regimen after losing the title. “The loss to Brian was the best thing that could happen to my career,” Torres said. “The biggest thing after my fight with Brian was getting my time in order. I had to fix things so it could run by itself. I got a gym manager. I also went other places to train.” A big part of that was training with former WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto, which Torres told me in November was an “eye-opening experience.” … With Torres getting primary ink, does Benavidez feel overlooked? “I don’t look at it as disrespect,” he said. “I have to pave my way and get people excited about me. I don’t mind that role at all. It motivates me.” … Harris is targeting a minimum of eight shows in 2010, with cards lined up in April (WEC 48), June and August, and believes WEC will debut in Canada this year … Ecko Unlimited is offering two tickets to WEC 47 and the opportunity to sit next to Cotto through a promotion running via Twitter until midnight Thursday. To enter, Ecko wants to know why you out of anyone else deserve to be declared the winner. You must also follow the four contest judges: Cotto, Torres, Eric Samson and Kurt Pellegrino.

Bowles, Cruz, Reed Harris, Urijah Faber, WEC