Tonight’s WEC 43 card didn’t feature a whole lot of big names, but it featured a potential fight of the year candidate that just made have the promotion a brand new star.

The funny thing about the whole Donald Cerrone – Jamie Varner feud is that I never really found a side to fall on. I’ve always found Varner a little whiner, and I’ve always thought Cerrone was an overrated fighter, and kind of a tool. While their first fight that ended via an injury was an interesting fight, it wasn’t really a great fight by any stretch of the imagination.

Who knew that the best thing that could happen to the WEC was for the rematch of this fight to get postponed and having to implement an interim belt? Ben Henderson used a combination of fantastic takedowns, good jiu-jitsu positioning, and stupidly awesome submission defense to gain a victory over Cerrone.

For me, the best part of this fight was watching Henderson simply refuse to die while in five, count ‘em five, seperate tight submissions that Cerrone had cinched in. He went as far as to even give the referee a thumbs up during the fight itself. What’s not to like about a guy who likes a superhero alter-ego, complete with glasses and great long hair, and comes to ring to really cool hip-hop? (Side Note: If anyone knows the name of that song, let me know.)

The WEC being absorbed by the UFC rumors aren’t going to end anytime soon, but if they want to survive, they are going to need to build stars. Tonight, it looks like they found themselves another lightweight star in Ben “Smooth” Henderson.