Wineland, Semerzier make weight for Saturday's WEC 43 card

Chesterton-based fighter Eddie Wineland and Mackens Semerzier, who trains with East Chicago native Miguel Torres, both made weight Friday for their Saturday night fights.

The two are a part of World Extreme Cagefighting's WEC 43: Cerrone vs. Henderson card at the AT&T Center in San Antonio.

Wineland, the first bantamweight champion in WEC history, is fighting for the first time since a first-round submission loss to Rani Yahya at WEC 40 in Chicago in April. He tipped the scales at 135.5 pounds for his bantamweight (135 pounds) bout with Manny Tapia. Fighters are allowed to be up to 1 pounds over in non-title fights. Tapia also weight 135.5 pounds.

Semerzier, making his debut in the WEC, didn't have as easy a time, but eventually made the cut. In his first time on the scale, Semerzier weighed 146.5 pounds -- a half-pound over the allowable 146 limit for featherweights. Semerzier took part in the traditional stare-down with his opponent, Wagnney Fabiano. And following the weigh-in event he was able to remove his shorts and weighed in at 146 pounds on his second attempt.

Wineland, who was scheduled to fight at WEC 41 in Sacramento in June but had to pull out with an elbow injury, said he's excited to get back in the cage -- but that he struggled with making weight.

"I feel good," Wineland said Friday. "It was a very hard cut this time -- I dropped from 156 to 136 (and) dropped 12 pounds in roughly 18 hours."

Wineland (14-6-1, 1-2 WEC) said the matchup with Tapia (10-2-1, 2-2 WEC) should be a good one because he believes the two share similar strengths.

"It should be an exciting fight -- his strengths are my strengths," Wineland said. "So it will be whoever wants it more and whoever is the better fighter. He's planning on trying to take me down, so I'm going to stuff him and hurt him -- lay him out, and enjoy the victory."

Wineland and Semerzier are both scheduled to compete on the preliminary card Saturday night. WEC 43's main card will be broadcast live on the Versus cable network starting at 9 p.m. Central.

WEC 43 features an interim lightweight title fight between Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone and Ben "Smooth" Henderson.