WWE Agrees to Merge with UFC
cnbc.com
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There will be moments where WWE execs or simply WWE practices and processes will realise that a certain UFC outcome will be much better entertainment. The question is whether or not everyone will forever have the integrity to ignore that as an option and if the dividing line between the two cultures is strong enough to stop the bleed.
Could it maybe work the other way, start to make the WWE more real?
I don't think WWE as a product stands to gain much from becoming real. The UFC has brand value around being real, but you can see that management wants to sell drama, not sports.
poor people around the world have little fight clubs all the time, and the result is "knuckle heads" with broken teeth and unable to work. This show business has big production value, good lighting with excellent cameras, and yes, stories that people can latch on to.. hint- fight fans are often not very smart.
But you mentioned fans specifically, and here you're also way off. Much like the other sports I mentioned, the demographics of UFC viewers are also much more educated than the other sports I mentioned. Based on the Sports Business Journal's survey, 42% of NBA viewers have a college degree, 34% for MLB, 32% for the NFL, and 55% for UFC.
Now you can object to college being a good indicator of intelligence and that's fine, but it's probably a much better indicator than just randomly making stuff up and stereotyping people based on their hobby.
This might be due to some MMA fighters having a collegiate wrestling background.
That would be a tragic mistake for everyone involved. People like being in on the joke when John Cena, a grown man costumed in neon green, runs around the square stage whilst pretending to be invisible. It would ruin the fun if his opponent unceremoniously dropkicked him in the solar plexus.
The Undertaker: Long Term Story Telling in Wrestling : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHVCTOmQNZM
Professional Wrestling is Stupid and Beautiful and I Love it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQCPj-bGYro
Not to take away from the point, but I could also see this being part of the joke. "No, obviously you're not invisible! Why did you think I would fall for that?"
The point is that WWE broadcasts are specifically about fun and entertainment. It's not supposed to be "real". (Although, obviously it is "real" even if it's staged; imagine doing what they do and not killing or injuring yourself or anyone else.)
I think this move really makes sense for the career paths of UFC fighters. Right now, you can have a very marketable fighter fall in the rankings, and suddenly lose a ton of value. MMA fighters also tend to decline really quickly with age. So a transition to something else like Pro Wrestling can be a good path to maintaining a really lucrative career, as we've seen with a bunch of fighters like Ronda Rousey, Brock Lesnar, and Ken Shamrock.
Sure, but the concern is that they will start following the WWE practice of basing the winners on what is more marketable. Given that the practice of fight-fixing has a long history in boxing, this merger seems like a really tone deaf money-grab to me.
In talking to fans that I know, WWE fans don't want the wresting to become more real. Nobody watching WWE is under the impression that being thrown onto a table is something that would happen in the normal course of a sporting competition. Making it more like "real" wrestling would largely defeat the parts that make the WWE fu
UFC fans, on the other hand, are coming to the sport because it's real. Fans that only watch the UFC are often very sensitive about a comparison to the WWE, because they value the fact that it is "real" competition and not scripted.
They actually tried that in the 90s. Turns out, having performers compete who are used to making a fight with a scripted outcome look real - rather than win an open-ended fight - is a terrible idea.
While there certainly are pro-wrestlers who could legitimately win a real fight (the name Haku coming to mind; according to reports that a guy was a certified bad-ass you wouldn't have wanted to mess with), most of them likely don't really know how to block non-scripted jabs or strikes, which led to serious injuries during that event.
"Back in 2014, Joe Rogan caught heat from pro wrestling fans after making fun of wrestling when comparing it to MMA. Rogan noted that MMA was real, while wrestling "was some weird, f**ing jerk-off thing that strange guys do when they sit in front of the TV and pretend that they don't know it's fake."
Rogan later said he was just making a joke and didn't really hate pro wrestling. In May of last year, Rogan spoke with comedian Patton Oswalt on his Joe Rogan Experience podcast about pro wrestling being called "fake."
"It's definitely scripted. It's not like they're risking it all because they don't know what the outcome is gonna be," Rogan said. "It's different than an actual athletic event, but it's still pretty badass as far as what they're able to do. They don't nearly get enough credit for it either. While they were doing it, before the lockdown, they were doing it 250+ days a year traveling all over the country, throwing each other on tables."
Earlier today, Rogan said he was watching the A&E Legends documentaries and may now finally understand what pro wrestling was about." [1]
[1] https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2021/06/the-rock-responds-...
Wrestling came from circus and sideshow. Stage magic has also had a large presence there, historically. Both art forms have a history of keeping their "methods" secret.
It reminds me of the first Borat movie, where Sascha Baron Cohen - at the time relatively unknown outside of the UK - stayed in character during the promotion of the movie. People didn't know if this character was for real or if it was an actor playing a part. It was part of the "art" (I know it sounds weird to call Borat "art", I don't want to get into a pedantic argument about definitions ... let's just say that magic, film, pro wrestling ... all theatre).
Ethically, it's an interesting grey area and I think that each has different reasons for being protective of what going on behind the scenes. Every magician has learned the hard way that audiences usually react to finding out how a trick is done with disappointment and that's the real reason that methods are kept guarded. The line for me is that I will never pretend that what I am doing when in character is anything other than parlour tricks and illusions.
I think that pro wrestling and Kayfabe are similar. For a long time pro wrestling did want to protect the illusion. These days they are much more open about it being scripted and predetermined and, like magic, anyone that wants to learn how some of it is done can find out very easily online. But I think that they still don't want to advertise the techniques because, in their belief, it would ruin the suspension of disbelief.
Magic is actually the UNWILLING suspension of disbelief. Even if a trick is not framed as an intellectual puzzle, it takes an intelligent audience to experience the illusion. The person watching must have a clear understanding of what is possible vs what is not, and the magician needs to understand every possible explanation that might run through a typical rational human mind and work to preemptively disprove those explanations. It's a fun implied intellectual challenge.
I can find pro wrestling to be entertaining but I'm not a super-fan and so I don't know if the "unwilling suspension of disbelief" enters into the picture with Kayfabe at all .. but I can see how it can. If we were under the assumption that every move and stunt were without any risk then would it still be AS entertaining? The "moves" in pro wrestling do not eliminate risk but they definitely work to reduce it. And understanding the mechanics, like in magic, has the potential to break the illusion.
Not a fan myself but I long ago wrapped my head around the Kayfabe and why it's silly to point out it's fake. Its just another sub type of "soap opera", like comic books, daytime soaps and telenovelas ...
Lots of the drama and conflicts and stories could easily be lifted and put in an actual soap opera with minimal modification.
It's a soap opera with tons of crazy, live stunts.
McMahon admitted publicly that wrestling was fake in 1989 to avoid taxes.
https://www.thesportster.com/wwe-vince-mcmahon-admitted-wres...
In fact I would compare wrestling to what stuntmen do. Scripted but very real in most ways.
Different era, but back in the 90s, guys like Ric Flair or Mick Foley were almost superhuman in terms of stamina or the bumps they were able to take and still continue.
I watched it when it was called the WWF and stopped watching it just before it got renamed to the WWE so I’m less familiar with all the newer wrestlers from the last 20 years but I’ve seen the greats live, like Rick Flair. Being able to “woooooo!” with the entire arena was fun as hell even though we all know it wasn’t a real competitive event.
Talent was very patient with fans, let pretty much everyone take pictures. Staff cared about fans, asking about their favorite part or listening to the odd complaint. Compared to say a kitchen crew getting off work and unwinding, the WWE folks were surprisingly wholesome. Everyone seemed nice and down to earth.
And no one is going to say that it doesn't take athleticism to be a good stuntman. That it's not dangerous. The difference between the WWE and professional stuntmen is that the professional stuntmen have guidelines and rules about safety. The WWE, less so.
On a movie set, if you were going to dangle a person 100 ft in the air, then every possible landing surface would be covered in padding and foam. Then about 10 yards further out just in case. In the WWE, Owen Hart hits the concrete and dies live on Pay Per View. And then they continue the show.
These are real people, doing real stunts, with real danger. The only thing fake is the outcome of the match.
All that Rogan said is not untrue.
This happens now. Colby doesn't have many recent wins but he's getting a title shot because he's provocative.
It does seem like it's potentially more about setting up a future sale of both companies though, doesn't it? There's now no risk of them potentially competing against each other with sellers (I know they're very different products but they'd occupy the same gap in the market for a lot of buyers, I'd imagine).
From a business perspective, they're pretty much the same, both being mostly based on negotiating TV rights fees and, to a lesser extent, promoting individual stars.
https://wrestletalk.com/news/comparison-wwe-stars-greatly-un...
It's been reported there are performers who make more money streaming on Twitch than wrestling.
https://www.thesportster.com/news/zelina-vega-more-money-twi...
For UFC it's around 15% of revenue.
https://www.fightful.com/mma/report-ufc-fighters-received-ju...
I by the way consider it no less funny when people pretend or assume MMA to be tantamount to - or at least a close approximation of - self-defence situations. MMA is still a sport with rules, which has very little in common with a non-consensual fight.
I would not be happy about this if I was a UFC fighter/WWE wrestler, since less competition will mean less compensation. Where's the anti-trust busters when you need them?
The UFC and WWE have already vertically integrated their respective niches. They're pretty much the only game in town. If no one cared when WWE bought ECW and WCW--and no one cared when the UCF bought Strikeforce--nothing is gonna be done now.
You know, there's a good Ari Daivari, Slim J & Jeeves K joke in here somewhere..
Besides, what you are describing is not a “monopoly” it would be a “monopsony” even if the same people would be going from WWE to UFC.
The one sport where there is no advantage over the other "competitor" if one is taking drugs. In fact I would claim that drug use is needed in order to recover and deal with the injuries from the brutal physical abuse they put their bodies through.