Roggg

World Wrestling Entertainment’s Mixed Martial Arts Potential

Pride (the offspring of professional wrestler Antonio Inoki) had to deal with the stigma of pro-wrestling from the first shows, and went on to greater success (despite having a couple worked fights in the early shows!) Is it really irrelevant?

If WWE were to associate itself with MMA -- as it has attempted to do in the past (in 2006 WWE held meetings with DreamStage) -- the WWE brand *might* be a detriment. It's tough to say for sure; sentiments like that are common in the MMA-fan world and from the MMA practitioner's perspective, but does the entire potential audience for MMA, or an MMA-WWE hybrid, agree? The US audience for pro-wrestling was once quadruple what it is today. Whether or not the effort would be accepted by serious sports fans, it could still be profitable and popular.

Shane McMahon has discussed it in interviews before. It seems a good possibility that WWE will head in this direction in the future, one way or another.

World Wrestling Entertainment’s Mixed Martial Arts Potential

Early modern MMA was very closely intertwined with professional wrestling. The UFC organization was started as a marketing tool for Gracie Jujitsu, not as a "legitimate" sports league.

There are plenty of confirmed "works" and "worked shoots" (fake fights) in MMA history and the sport has been successfully promoted in a manner very, very similar to pro-wrestling. (See the history of Pancrase) It isn't so different from wrestling that WWE couldn't get a handle on it.

(Not to say that they will do it right if they do try - WWF did a toughman competition in the 90s and it was a disaster)