WWE vs UFC, The Pro’s and Con’s

Ever since Brock Lesnar won the UFC Heavyweight Champion, MMA fans have been an uproar and have been vocal about their hatred for pro wrestling and people involved in pro wrestling. This has led to the pro wrestling fan to be defensive and defending their heroes. I am a fan of both pro wrestling and MMA and I would like to take a look at the pros and con’s of both.

Lets start with the pros of MMA, more specifically the UFC. The UFC has come incredible fighters. One pro about UFC is you’re not on the road 300 days and you only fight 3-4 times a year and makes a fan of a certain fighter anxious to watch their next fight. Another thing about the UFC, is it is not scripted as far as we know and it’s unpredictable. It always has the big fight atmosphere. The one thing that really put UFC on the map again is the the Ultimate Fighter. To me the first season of the Ultimate Fighter was better then the first season of WWE’s Tough Enough. I mean the Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar fight really captured my attention, and I loved Forrest Griffin since that show. Their are a lot of great fighters that came out of the first season of TUF. More people from the first season of TUF became successful then any of the Tough Enough seasons. The only people I really think that have had any success from being on Tough Enough are Matt Morgan, Melina, The Miz, John Morrison, and if he wouldn’t have had a battle with cancer Matt Cappotelli would be in WWE right now rocking the joint. So simply put the UFC has the better show for competition. The UFC has a lot of momentum for them right now and are headed in the right direction.

Now on to the con’s of UFC. The problem with UFC is that they don’t really have weekly TV shows. They have replays of PPV fights, not something that interest me unless I missed the PPV. Also they have replays of each Ultimate Fighter Finale every Friday. If you have already seen it, why would you watch it again, unless it was a good fight. I’ll watch the first fight between Griffin and Bonnar any day because it was a classic. The other problem is that UFC pay-per-views are 60 something dollars and you’re not necessarily guaranteed 2-3 hours of action where as WWE guarantees 2 hours every Raw, and Smackdown, 1 hour of ECW and Three hours of every PPV. I would never ever pay for a UFC PPV unless the card was stacked. I don’t even buy wrestling PPV’s anymore with the exception of Wrestlemania. The one thing that Dana White said an interview once that really bothered me is that UFC’s stories are better because they are more real. How can you call pitting to fighters against one another a story/feud. The only real feuds I’ve ever seen out of UFC are Ken Shamrock/Dan Severn, Chuck Liddell/Randy Couture, and Ken Shamrock/Tito Ortiz. Other then that they do their trash talking before the bout and move on once the bout is over. Those are really, the only con’s to the UFC.

Now on to the pros of professional wrestling, more specifically the WWE, and little bit of TNA mixed in as well. The WWE has characters anyone can relate to. The Jamaicans relate to Kofi Kingston, the goths relate to the Undertaker and the rebels can relate to Stone Cold Steve Austin. There is something for everyone to enjoy. The WWE also travels internationally which has given more worldwide exposure then any sports or entertainment brand. Also Wrestlemania has more PPV buys then almost any MMA or boxing PPV every year. The WWE has had some great feuds over the years, like Flair-Sting, Flair- Austin-McMahon, Austin-Rock, DX-McMahon’s, Jericho-Michaels, and even Edge-Undertaker. Even TNA has had a great feud, and that’s Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe. That has been one of the most surreal feuds in quite sometime in pro wrestling. They have had some of the best matches in recent memory in pro wrestling. WWE also does a lot of charity work and is has a lot of wrestlers who are considered heroes to those who watch them. WWE, TNA, and pro wrestling to me will never die.

The con’s to pro wrestling are the fact that it has become so predictable and the Internet reveals everything before its going to happen. I always watch wrestling on TV because it’s something I enjoy but the problem is I can tell you whats probably going to happen within the first 10 minutes on every show, and about 5 minutes into every match. Unless you’re watching independents, you pretty much know how a match or show is going to go unless you’re a crazy obsessed mark who takes everything that they literally or think it’s not staged. And that’s the word I use, is staged because it is not fake. I hate the word fake, because they do get hurt. Guys like Triple H, Kurt Angle and even Hulk Hogan have comeback from injuries that should have ended their careers. And if you still think wrestling is fake go to YouTube and search for Mankind vs. the Undertaker, Hell In a Cell, and watch the first five to ten minutes of the match and tell me that its fake then. Granted when someone gets hurt in UFC its always real where is in WWE it’s not but people wrestle through their injuries all the time and sometimes don’t have the time to recover whereas UFC fighters get 3-4 months to recover. Being a WWE superstar to me has the toughest schedule out of any sport or brand of entertainment. They are on the road 300 days out of the year. The one last con about pro wrestling is that the secrets have been exposed and it’s not as kayfabe as it once was. I remember their was a time, when good guys and bad guys has their own locker rooms, and opponents never rode together or never stayed at the same hotel and the wrestlers always stayed in character. It’s not like that anymore and sometimes I think it harms the business.

To me WWE and UFC are two completely different companies, and two different professions. I believe you can be a fan of both and not show favoritism to one or the other. They actually have a few things in common. Both have bosses that can be complete jerks, in the form of Dana White and Vince McMahon. Both have put their greatest competition out of business as in WWE taking out WCW, and UFC taking out Pride FC which to me has hurt both businesses tremendously. To me when their is no competition things get boring and dry and lose interest. To me WWE was it’s best when WCW was taking them on head-to-head. And UFC put on better PPV’s when Pride FC was in business.

The one thing I find funny about Dana White, is you never hear him knock TNA Wrestling. Why? Because TNA and UFC share the same network, Spike TV. They have actually co-promoted a few times in the past. So it proves two things to me, and that is Dana White is a smart business man. And he also doesn’t hate pro wrestling as much as leads us to believe. If he did, he wouldn’t have signed Brock Lesnar.

The one thing that pro wrestling has that MMA doesn’t, and people might hate me for saying this. The one thing that they have, or had is Hulk Hogan. When people think pro wrestling they think of Hulk Hogan. Even non-pro wrestling fans know who Hulk Hogan is. Do any non-MMA fans know any MMA fighters? Probably not unless they are from your hometown. Hulk Hogan is known worldwide and to me is the biggest attraction in sport-entertainment history. You name one MMA fighter who is what Hulk Hogan was to wrestling? Chances are you can’t. Does this mean I like MMA any less? No. I actually love it equally as much as pro wrestling but pro wrestling was in my blood first.

I know their will always be a lifelong debate on which is better, but to me both are great and I enjoy watching both pro wrestling and MMA. They both capture my attention and people who are in either profession deserve respect for the hard work they put in. In closing, I would like to say I look forward to some great things in 2009 from WWE, TNA and UFC. It’s going to be a great year to watch.