MMASucka

After rumors persisted about Chicago native and WWE superstar CM Punk walking down to the Octagon with Chael Sonnen at UFC on FOX 2 this Saturday night, it made me wonder if the UFC and WWE can work together and crossover. When talking to MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani, Chael Sonnen made an interesting point about why he wanted “The Voice of the Voiceless” to walk out to the cage with him.

One… we’re friends, two… I really like him, three… it’s his hometown, four… he’s a big UFC fan and five… there is major crossover.  A number of years ago I think we all thought we had to compete with each other. That boxing, MMA and wrestling thought that we were going to have to have our own fans but what we have learned with time is that it’s not true. People are crossover fans and just all around fans, especially when you’re talking about CM Punk here in Chicago. That guy is royalty around here and I think it would have been fun for both of us.

Chael touched on an interesting point that I have been saying for years. How is professional wrestling, which is sports entertainment, in direct competition with the UFC? They don’t compete directly with PPVs nor do they compete directly on cable television. Show me how the UFC or the WWE have suffered in pay-per-view revenue because of one another?

It also seems that Dana White has a great deal of respect and admiration towards Vince McMahon. You can see how some of the marketing over the last couple of years has emulated professional wrestling in some respects. Yes MMA is a legitimate sport, and professional wrestling is professional athletes acting. I know… I get it. Please keep the hate mail to yourself and hear me out.

I know some of you are pulling your hair out once again because I just compared the UFC to the WWE, but I hate to burst your bubble, there are  a lot of fighters who have also grasped onto the idea that marketing oneself through cutting a good promo and hyping a fight is a great way to get noticed and make money. Sure nobody is ripping their shirts off and telling you to say your prayers and eat your vitamins, but adding a little spice and bringing out some personality is sure a hell of a lot better than thanking your trainers, God, and telling the fans that you will fight whoever the UFC lines up. Zzzzz…boring.

Chael Sonnen seems to understand this “technique” the most. Sure, it’s not for everyone. The sport still needs guys like GSP and Junior Dos Santos; all round good guys who do their talking in the cage. The sport is full of honorable classy guys and gals who feel they don’t need to talk a bit of trash, but you have to love Nick Diaz, Chael Sonnen, Michael Bisping, Josh Koscheck, Ronda Rousey and Josh Barnett for stepping out of that mold and giving the UFC and Strikeforce some personality. Imagine if all fighters were like NHL hockey players? I don’t think the sport would survive. It’s the fight game and with fights there needs to be hype. This has been the way since the beginning of time. Hell, it worked wonders when the Romans promoted their Gladiators. Not much has changed.

Getting back to the point or the question of why the UFC can’t cross promote with the WWE? It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Remember when Ken Shamrock made his run in the WWF back in the 90’s? He came into professional wrestling  in his prime and was marketed as the “The World’s Most Dangerous Man,” a moniker ABC News gave him while he was fighting in the controversial UFC.  He was a UFC fighter getting into the WWF ring to feud with the likes of Vader, Brett “The Hitman” Hart and Shawn Michaels to name a few.

The WWF at the time had no problems having a former UFC fighter in their stable. To them it brought more legitimacy to their brand of sports entertainment.  Since then we have seen boxers like Mike Tyson, Buster Douglas and Floyd Mayweather cross promote within the WWE realm. Why would it be so crazy to see a UFC fighter do the same? Or vice versa?

Before Brock Lesnar retired there were rumors of him doing a special appearance at a Wrestlemania event to promote his upcoming UFC bout. Now how close that was to coming to actual fruition is not known. Those were merely just rumors and nobody really knows if that was accurate.

However, now that Lesnar is retired, do you not think that if he returned to the WWE that the storyline would be a former UFC heavyweight champ makes his return to the WWE ring? First off,  it’s not a matter of “if” it’s a matter of “when” Brock Lesnar returns to the WWE. They wouldn’t all of a sudden put him into their video game if they didn’t think he would make a return. The WWE is going to take their time in building his return to professional wrestling much like they have done with The Rock and his upcoming Wrestlemania bout with John Cena. Think about it, Lesnar hasn’t been in a WWE video game since “Here Comes The Pain” in 2003. Why did they all of a sudden include him now? When Lesnar does make his much anticipated debut how many UFC fans do you think will be tuning in? Don’t lie…you’ll watch.

Professional Wrestling, the UFC and boxing have proved that they can co-exist because in some ways they have very different target markets. Guess what? Some of their audience do crossover to each other. It is true Boxing has an older demographic, WWE has a younger demographic and the UFC seems to have an audience somewhere in the middle. Since the UFC has become more mainstream, those audiences are starting to blur into each other, which is great for all three sport entities. Why can’t someone enjoy boxing, MMA and wrestling? From what I’m seeing there are quite a few people who do.

Chael Sonnen is now playing down CM Punk’s appearance at UFC on FOX 2, claiming Vince McMahon kyboshed the idea. Who knows how accurate that is? WWE’s Royal Rumble is the next day and a little advertising at a UFC event to try and get a few more PPV buys doesn’t hurt. I wonder if this is Chael playing the media to make CM Punk’s appearance even more surprising when it does happen. We shall see. Nothing surprises me anymore.

Last year, there were meetings between Dana White and Vince McMahon. DW has never really divulged what those meetings were about. I do know at the time the WWE needed permission to use Brock Lesnar in their 2012 WWE video game and also allow Brock to promote it. Maybe there was an agreement in place to work together when it was convenient to help promote pay-per-views. With economic times being tough in the States, finding another marketing channel to advertise on once in a while is not always a bad thing.

Why would it be so crazy to see CM Punk walk down with Sonnen? It’s really not that big of a deal. We have seen WWE stars at live UFC events in the past. If Mike Goldberg were to mention that CM Punk is walking out with Chael Sonnen, and elude to the fact that he is involved in the WWE’s Royal Rumble on Sunday afternoon, would that be a bad thing? We have seen boxing and the WWE do crossovers. This symbiotic relationship has led to Batista walking out with Manny Pacquiao and HHH accompanying Mayweather to the ring.

On occasion, I don’t think there is anything wrong with having a UFC fighter do an appearance at a WWE event, or seeing a WWE guy walk out with a UFC fighter. Or maybe we see a UFC star like Nick Diaz try his hand at professional boxing or a high profile professional boxer enter the Octagon…oh wait we saw that already…never mind. You get what I mean.

MMA fans quiver when someone compares their sport to professional wrestling. What people forget is that if it wasn’t for professional wrestling, there would be no UFC. Here is something you may not have known. The UFC would have never had season one of the Ultimate Fighter on Spike had it not been for Vince McMahon giving Spike permission to air the show after Monday Night Raw. The rest is history. That is a fact.

That said, the UFC and WWE can work together on occasion and it can be mutually beneficial. I’m not sure what the big deal is. I haven’t been a huge WWE fan since “The Attitude Era” ended but I can understand the buzz that is created when the two organizations do a little crossover. It’s all in good fun. It’s true that Professional wrestling and MMA are apples and oranges but let’s not forget that they do come from the same fruit bowl.

-Corner Man-

Follow Trevor Dueck on Twitter @tdueckmania

“We were going to hold that division and just do fights with Cyborg whenever there was a new contender. She’s getting stripped of the belt. This pretty much kills the division,”
-Dana White on ESPN1100 Las Vegas, January 6, 2012

Looks like MMASucka.com writer Justin Faux called this outcome in his article HERE, almost exactly.  Cyborg is getting stripped of her title, and without a super star to hold the already thin 145lbs women’s division, the division may be dissolved.

Looking at the positive outcome of only one women’s division, it will bolster the 135lbs roster with the 145′s who can make the weight.  Current top 145lbs prospect Ronda Rousey has already been rumored to be fighting for the 135lbs title, and the likes of Juila Budd, Germaine de Randamie, and others will bring some interesting match ups for the top 135ers.

RELATED ARTICLES:
Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Santos Tests Positive for Steroids, Suspended by CSAC
Cyborg Santos: Does Her Positive Test Mark The End of Her Division?

It was three weeks ago when the MMA world was in shock that Dana White had let Miguel Torres go following a rape comment on twitter.

Ariel Helwani gave the word today via his twitter account.

Dana says Torres is back. Torres has donated money to local rape centers, visited them. Dana says Torres was very remorseful.

No word as to when the former WEC bantamweight champion will return to the octagon.

Did you expect the UFC to bring Torres back? Were they right to let him go in the first place? Will he be in any main card fights?

The UFC will be holding their pre-fight press conference for this Friday’s (Dec.30) UFC 141 event today (Dec.28). You can watch the press conference live on MMASucka.com beginning at approximately 1pm PT/4pm ET.

Today’s press conference takes place at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino’s main lobby in Las Vegas and will be open to the general public. Expected to be in attendance are  UFC president Dana White and UFC 141 fighters Brock Lesnar, Alistair Overeem, Nate Diaz and Donald Cerrone.

“@DUANEBANGCOM@ufc and for x mas you have the fastest KO in UFC history and it will be changed ASAP”

-From Dana White’s Twitter account (@danawhite), 2:20 PM – 24 Dec 11

After much lobbying and internet campaigning, including an online petition, the UFC finally stepped up to give Duane “Bang” Ludwig the recognition he deserves. On January 16, 2006 during UFC Fight Night 3, Ludwig KO’d Canadian Jonathan Goulet with his first punch of the fight. According to the original official result, the fight was recorded at 0:11 seconds, but if you watch the video above, the Mario Yamasaki had touched Ludwig at the 0:04 mark, signifying the end of the fight.

During this month’s UFC 140 post fight press conference, Dana White had stated that “the Korean Zombie”, Chan Sung Jung, had tied the previously recorded fastest KO set by Todd Duffee at 0:07. To play devil’s advocate, Ariel Helwani had to bring up the Ludwig issue with White (as seen on the following video @4:43).  From then, Dana said “I’m on it.”

Dana kept his word and has given Ludwig a Christmas present he surely will not forget!

Dana White was his usual brash, unfiltered self last night and after the press conference ended, he stuck around to chat with members of the media, including MMASucka.com. Here are some highlights:

Dana was uncommitted on whether or not Miguel Torres would ever fight in the UFC again after the Twitter scandal, saying only “We’ll see”. He did appreciate Torres’ statement after the fact, but left no confusion on how he feels about his decision:

“Nobody has any business making jokes about rape….It was from a TV show? Who gives a shit? This is not a TV show.”

When asked about consistency, given the similar circumstances of Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans, White was defiant:

“You want to see consistency? Let’s see if anybody does that again. I double dare you. I double dare you to tweet something like that again. It’s unfortunate, [Torres] is a good guy. It made no sense, it came out of left field. Sending things like that out there on twitter, It’s not like you have some forum to explain yourself and discuss what you meant. It’s a hundred and something characters. It’s bad news. People can agree with me or disagree, I don’t care…it won’t happen again.”

Dana went on to discuss the place of Tito Ortiz in the company’s history and their tumultuous relationship.:

“Tito has a significant place in the history of this sport. When you really think about it, the battle between Tito and I and Chuck really did build this thing in the beginning. It was a big story. You had people who loved Tito and hated me. People who were on my side and didn’t like Tito.”

“There were times when me and Tito were at our absolute worst; when things were just nasty as nasty could be behind the scenes was when he fought Lyoto Machida. That was probably one of the craziest time in my entire career. Someday you guys will see it because most of it’s on video and most of it…are video blogs that never went out.”

“To explain to you guys how angry that guy used to make me, it was crazy. It was literally crazy.”

He also credited Joe Rogan for being there since the beginning, noting that Joe didn’t even get paid for his initial appearances:

“When I [first] called Joe Rogan and said ‘I think you would be great at commentary in the UFC’, he was on the highest rated show on network television at the time – Fear Factor. He did the first 15 UFC’s for free. We didn’t pay Joe Rogan a dime for the past 15 UFC’s.”

Dana White announced the formation of a 125 pound Flyweight division, with the first champion being decided in a four man mini-tournament. White had told the media that the first fights will be held on March 3rd, likely on pay-per-view, but the UFC website has them listed for the “UFC on FX 2″ card. The first fights will be Joseph Benavidez vs. Yasuhiro Urushitani and Ian McCall vs. Demetrious Johnson.

Post-fight bonuses were $75,000 to Jon Jones and Lyoto Machida for Fight of the Night, Chan Sung Jung for KO of the night and Frank Mir for Submission of the Night.

Attendance was 18,303 for a $3.9 million gate.

Other post-fight notes:

-White shot down rumours that Alistair Overeem was pulling out of his fight with Brock Lesnar. The subject was brought up again later in the press conference, however, with Mir saying if it was true he’d like to take Overeem’s spot.

-Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira requires surgery on both his elbow and his shoulder.

-Still no decision on what if anything will be done with Jason “Mayhem” Miller

-Dana ranks Jon Jones #2 pound for pound behind Anderson Silva.

-Two events in Brazil next year, one in Rio and another at a location yet to be finalized in May. The UFC will also be starting “The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil” which Dana is flying out Monday to oversee.

-Dana: “Strikeforce Lives”. The fighters in Strikeforce are to remain in Strikeforce, Dana added: “I will make this right, they’re going to be happy to be there. I’ve got this figured out. Everyone will be happy.” Dana had hoped to make a Strikeforce announcement tonight, but said instead it would probably be Monday.