WWE Rips On UFC 91
The latest report from Dave Meltzer’s F4WOnline notes a WWE article (that has apparently been taken down now) which goes out of its way to specifically bash the UFC 91 undercard despite it proving to be one of the most exciting cards to date:
“…Many of the fights on the UFC PPV ended in the first round leaving UFC producers scrambling to fill the three-hour event with content. The dearth off hearty competition left many viewers to watch less prestigious undercard fights and only served to bolster claims that UFC pay per view events can often be a `crap shoot’ in regards to filling the full three hours.”
One can only wonder if the person who wrote that piece even bothered to watch the fights, or has any knowledge of MMA whatsoever. Sadly, it is this type of rhetoric which fuels the fire between MMA and WWE purists, when really a mutual respect is all either party should be working towards. The WWE article even slipped in a jab about Brock Lesnar for “taking advantage of the encouragement of the WWE Universe and all the hard lessons he learned in WWE for his win.”
Yeah, that makes sense. Way to be mature about a former employee finding success in another industry, WWE.
Tags: Brock Lesnar
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Yer, it was such a shame we had to see undercard fights such as Gurgel in the fight of the night and Stephens knock out of the night!
The WWE has long been a shady organization. While Vince McMahon sure knows how to make a lot of money, he has made a lot of questionable ethics decisions. (see Owen Heart’s death) I am not a fan of theirs, or their product for that matter, but the way they handle certain things is not good. Like Eric said in the article, there is no real reason why they should be trying to bash the UFC, they aren’t competition, they sell two different products. Fake combat competition soap opera show – WWE, real combat competition – UFC. But frankly, I don’t care what the WWE thinks, its kind of hard to know how long an event will run when its not pre-scripted.
LMAO !!!
I read that too instead of attempting to bury the UFC maybe they should concentrate on making their own products entertaining the WWE is pure ****iness to the max they aint produce nothing decent since 99′ and PPV buyrates are way below UFC’s and calling UFC PPV a crap shoot is hilarious we get some of the WWE PPV free in the UK and i seen some content of one a few months back and is was pure crap i mean 2 roiders attempting to punch it was so funny.
And why would people want to watch a fight a head of a pre determined match in which the bosses son in law wins again……..
Definitely weird that WWE is even commenting on a UFC event, they don’t usually play that game unless they have to. Everything usually goes by Vince McMahon first, especially an article with comments like that ….. weird !!!!
WWE is very touchy when it comes to respect and its almsot as if they expect you to stay for life or scre w you type thing….. They welcomly take people back who have went on to better things but UFc is directly taking their fan base, using very similar marlketing techniques and videos, storylines, some feuds. UFC does an excellent job with marketing and its very similar to WWE, the only thing is that its real for the most part in UFC, which is better. Brock is using his popularity created during his WWE reign and using it with UFC and to grow the UFC. UFC is beating WWE in PPV buys and has been doing so for a couple years now. I believe that UFC is also a direct cause of WWE loosing viewers. I know for myself, i barely ever watch WWE anymore and to be honest its because MMA and the UFC have replaced it for me.
Still no reason to be cheap like that but WWE is obviously hurting right now and need to stir up attention and make themselves sound like, although fake, you get what is advertised and what you pay to see type thing…….. Very low….
Just another shot in the war for the arrested development adolescents action figure dollars…
HillBilly Jim
The WWE is calling something a crap shoot? Something other than the scripted crap they shoot at the tv screen?
See what I did there???
haha …. WWE has become Crap and its too bad, I used to love Pro Wrestling……….. i’m tired of seeing the same guys against each other for the last 7 years….
WWE is still on tv? Didn’t know people still watched that crap. Who cares what they think.
We got to see 9 amazing fights over a 3 hour PPV, WWE has what 5-6 “wrestling” matches on a 3 hour PPV and the rest is talking, backroom “brawls”, and just pure crap. I used to watch it back in the day when it was WWF and UFC was just kicking off.
Hi,
I write for the MMA community on the Bleacher Report and am currently embroiled in this very controversy. I am “only” 62 years old, but am beginning to think the arguing between the MMA and Wrestling communities on B/R will live longer than I will, so I may not ever see the end of all this.
So I would like to thank all the MMA supporters here, for the continued support for our “real” sport as opposed to their “fake” entertainment (I cannot support calling WWE a sport!).
They call me “Grandma Dee” and I am a MMA Editorial Writer and proud of it!
I really don’t think it was a shot per se. More like trying to legitimize their own product, and to show the world that they too have athletes. McMahon is a genius with the way he sells his product, so too is Dana White. They both know that they are NOT in compititon with each other. When is the last time the WWE ran a Saturday PPV? Oh thats right, NEVER.
Everyone is reading way too much into it IMO.
Vince would crush the UFC if he went into MMA …… Dana respects vince and see’s that its better to be friends than a billionaires enemy
Like he crushed the NFL with his XFL.
If Vince was to enter MMA it would end in tears Vince knows nothing outside of Wrestling sorry sports entertainment.
its the worst actors in the world taking roids wearing tights!!! the wwe is rigged hmmmm hhh is married to stephanie mc. he is the champ hmmm i wonder! wwe lost alot when the lost crafty vets! ufc is real yes so is wwe but i noticed there is more talk and less wrestling these days. you dont see matt serra before i match in the octagon and grab the mike and say im going to hit u with a steal chair do u?
Although I agree that this is a dumb comment on WWE’s part, it seems as though everyone is taking it way to personally. If you really think about it, this is the same tactic that Dana uses when he attacks other orginizations like elitexc or affliction. before anyone fires something back at me, just hear me out.
Dana has repeatedly taken verbal shots at competing orginizations in an attempt to make them seem like a joke (to his credit I am with him 100% on what he says about elite). he’s also gone so far as to purposely arrange events that would take viewers from affliction and elite ppv’s. On some level this may be him just personally disliking those guys, but it’s also a business decision that he made to protect his product.
Now, I know MMA and WWE aren’t direct competition like elite and affliction. But there is some overlap in terms of viewers since they target alot of the same demographic. Therefore, WWE sees them as a potential threat. To add to that, the guy headlining the fight was a former WWE superstar. And to add more to that, we’ve seen people like kurt angle and bobby lashley wanting to get into MMA and other WWE stars going to events. I can’t blame WWE for thinking that they need to do something to discredit what’s a very viable threat.
So yes i think it’s dumb of them to have said what they said, but everyone should realize that they’re not the only ones who use that tactic. and for the record, i like dana white.
Dana white came after Elite and Affliction because they’re bad for the sport, and they’re trying to ride the UFC’s coat tails.
Lashley is in MMA, he is making his debut in December for Mixed Fight Alliance.
Did nev-o call WWE real and except to be taken seriously?
Expect even. And I didn’t even have a liquid lunch.
justin, i agree on elite being bad for the sport, affliction i’m not so sure because they’re still trying to get the ball rolling. but either way, the point is that Dana attacked those guys for the threat they posed to his product. UFC is a threat to WWE’s product. they may be threats in different ways or for different reasons, but the end result is the same if that threat isn’t addressed…. money lost.
2 Girls 1 Cup, I agree. The fans are mostly the same and most fans are choosing UFC. WWE PPV buys are decreasing and UFC is leading in PPV’s now.
The marketing tactics are very similar, videos…etc
UFC is real which makes it very unpredictable and better.
It seems like WWE is picking at the only thing they can and thats giving the fans a guarantee of what they will see and not the chance of a 30 second KO. WWE guarantees a show and when HHH challenges Batista, you know it will be a dramatic 30 minute fight, fake or not.
Like |I said, regardless I choose UFC now. I love the sport and the unpredictability.
ya, and just to be clear, i love the ufc and i think that running out of fights because of all the ko’s and subs is a good thing. i don’t mind paying the same for half the show if it’s all highlight material. I haven’t been a fan of WWE for at least 10 years, but in trying to be objective i can’t really fault them for trying to slow the momentum of the ufc and mma as a whole.
Vince knows what people like, and remember, he did go after Pride. Luckily, the UFC beat him on that one too. (Although Fedor/Great Khali had possibilities…)
We left out usual establishment Saturday night about half an hour earlier than than normal but not for one second did I feel gypped. In fact, if the PPV goes the full three hours, I worry because that means that the fights went to decisions and either 1) the fights will by like Jorge and Riley (exciting and action filled) or 2) not like Jorge and Riley. Will the UFC sometimes have times where they will sruggle to fill three hours of material? Maybe. But that’s the price you pay for putting out a live, unscripted product. It’s easy to give fans three hours of material when you’re writing three hours of material. There is room for both in the entertainment/sports industry. I think the UFC could take a look at some of WWE’s production, but to me, it’s kind of pointless to say one is better than the other. They are marketed both at similar, but slightly different demographics.
Do I think Vince could give the UFC a run for their money? Maybe. Vince certainly has the cash to do it and probably the connections and insider pull in the television industry to pull it off, but I think he would have two primary problems. The first is legitimacy/integrity of competition. Everyone outside of the young and the kool-aid drinkers knows that the WWE, while providing high quality athletic enetertainment, is scripted. Any attempts to provide quality MMA entertainment would suffer not from any shortcomings in the fights, but from guilt by association. This is the reason why ALL professional sports are so paranoid about gambling by players and referees and why the penalties for gambling are much more severe than performance enhancers. The only way to get around this is by basically setting up a sister company that is associated with WWE in the sense that both are supported by Vince’s money.
The next major obstacle is patience. While I would hardly be an expert on WWE or Vince McMahon, I have a hard time believing he would have the patience to build, from the ground up, an MMA organization that would have a good, strong, fairly deep stable of fighters that would threaten the UFC’s virtual monopoly on MMA in the US. I get the feeling that he would be closer to the EliteXC formula (throw a ton of money at something and hope for the best) and come up with a gimmick than to do what the UFC did and build an efficient talent machine.
Could he do it? He does have the financial muscle to do it and the desire to make more money, but I fear that there are too many hurdles for even him to overcome.
Sorry about the length of that post.
Haha WWE is so cute. I’d pinch it’s cheek if I could.
I agree that the UFC is a threat to the WWE because they are targeting the same demographic, and obviously taking some people away. But its a much different kind of threat than what ProElite and Affliction are to the UFC product. ProElite, and Affliction, though Affliction much less, are/were marketing MMA as their product, yet Affliction is a junk organization run by a jerk that knows very little about MMA and wants to bash the guy that saved the sport from being banned in this country. ProElite was even “allegedly” paying fighters to stand, which is kickboxing not MMA, and promoting a street thug with mediocre stand up as the next big thing in MMA. Not only are they targeting the same demographic, but they are selling something that is an inferior product, especially in the case of ProElite. What ProElite did was basically take a Ford Taurus and sell it as a luxury car, while it is a car and its more luxury than say a pinto, that doesn’t make it a luxury car. But if someone didn’t know what a luxury car was, and they saw a Taurus and believed that was what a Luxury car was, that would damage Lexus, a true luxury car, in that person’s eyes.
i agree completely, i don’t think vince has the neccessary patience or interest in mma to see himself through a business venture. although i see alot of questionable qualities in dana, one thing i feel is that he is 100% dedicated to the sport. i’m sure that the financial dividends are partially responsible for that i wouldn’t say it’s just a business to him. i’ve spoken to people that work directly with him and the fertidas and this idea has been pretty much confirmed for me. The shaws failed cuz they were simply doing what they thought was the in thing that would make a ****load of money so they didn’t care about making a joke of it all. As i said earlier i’m still up in the air with affliction because i feel that they’re truly interested in doing good things for the sport but i’m not sure how successful they’ll be with their current business model.
What ridiculous comments, especially when comparing apples and oranges (or sour grapes in WWE’s case). One event is real (UFC) the other is strictly entertainment (WWE). I believe the undercard fights are usually more exciting to watch because the fighters are trying to claw their way up the ladder to be noticed, while the “hyped-up fights”, as fun as they are to talk about beforehand, tend to be a little more cautious in nature due to the fact these fighters have a helluva lot more to lose, GSP and a few others, notwithstanding. I grew out of the WWE when i was about 12 years old, nice to see that some things in life remain consistent.
It is easy for WWE to make the exact time committment when the entire “production” is scripted. If i wanted to watch a soap opera i would, but i like to watch real live fights and the not knowing adds to the thrill of the “sport” which pro wrestling is not. Why should there be any mutual respect between apples and oranges, one is purely for entertainment while the other is real sanctioned sport. I feel that some mental midgets get upset and feel their favorite WWE hero is emasculated when compared to actual MMA fighters.
And you know about 97% of the time who will win in the WWE. I catch half a MNR a month and when I ask my buddy whos fighting on the PPV, I can name who will win no problem. I dont get how people can tune into it when they see the same moves week in and out.
TNA for the win
FUNNY i feel the same way when i watch the crap they produce
Um, that’s just funny…not like funny ha ha, but just funny like, huh? I hope Dana doesn’t get into an Eminem vs Insane Clown Posse pissing contest.
A war of words between real life and a manopera. Just dumb.
Dear Vince MAcMahon,
The UFC is “real” fighting. Go back to make believe WWE diva land where 7′ tall Kane takes beatings from little 4′3 Taqueria employee Ray Mysterio. Idiot WWE people……and to think I have a ritual of watching MOnday night Raw….
Real Fight Fan,
KOuch
i don’t even know how you can call professional wrestling a sport. If something is pre-determined there is no reason to compete. In other sports there are predictions but nothing is set in stone until the dust settles. I HATE PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING!!!!! The only kind of wrestling i like is the one in high school, middle school, college and the Olympics. What is exciting about two guys on steroids trying to verbally abuse each other with not even good comebacks toward one another and then pulling off fake matches and fake punches. The commentators are the worst though. I was listening to one of them and a guy “kicked” another guy and the commentator said that he was showing some great jiu-jitsu and when a guy “hit” the other guy in the back the commentator said that was a devastating judo chop. WHAT THE HELL!!! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A JUDO CHOP!!! AND THIS WAS THE WWE!!! I HATE PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING!!!
“less prestigious undercard fights”? That’s a dip**** statement. They obviously don’t know S**t about f**k. Those fights were all pretty damn good in my oppinion.
Kyle
“Judo Chop” = Austin Powers catch phrase before his knock out blow! Very efective! 100% knock out rate, it works every time, its a real move!
It’s a lot like a “Judo Trip!!”
Haha yeah and Im sure (as a fill in) watching a group of oiled up men in trunks talking backstage with their bad wooden acting is money well spent for a 3 hour ppv.
Ooh I think somebody’s jealous, WWE should watch their back haha.
I mean, I cant blame them like, their employees seem to be moving away from them, Bobby Lashley is another one pursuing MMA, and Im sure alot more will do the same in the future. Either that or go to TNA (Y).
windmiller ….. yeah i know it was a movie….. very funny ones…. but he was serious he wasnt cracking up or anything the commentator i mean.