Marketability-centered matchmaking isn’t even exclusive to UFC. College football bowls are virtually never selected based on skill outside of the New Year’s Six.
Ken Shamrock and Brock Lesnar both started as pro wrestlers who transitioned between Pro wrestling and MMA. Only Rousey has really managed to make a successful pure MMA->WWE transition. It will be interesting to see how many MMA stars can actually find success in the WWE before WWE fans become tired of the UFC treating the WWE has the UFC retirement home.
All of Japanese MMA descends from 80s/90s Japanese 'hard-style' pro wrestling.
Re:WWE Agrees to Merge with UFC
by ilikecakeandpie on Monday April 03, 2023 @11:10AM
(#35425003)
Jessamyn Duke, Shayna Baszler, and Tom Lawlor have found success as well, but not all inside WWE. I think they'd be embraced if they approach it as becoming a wrestler instead of being an MMA fighter who pulls their strikes and loosely locks in submissions
>Their matchmaking is already often based off of what will be marketable.
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.
Re:WWE Agrees to Merge with UFC
by ilikecakeandpie on Monday April 03, 2023 @11:07AM
(#35424941)
We just missed out on the possibility of Josh Barnett vs Brock Lesnar in a feud with two wrestling matches and an MMA fight to serve as the rubber match.
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.