In the past myself and several other sports fans were a bit apprehensive when it was announced that the UFC and the WWE were seeking to join forces to form one behemoth company called TKO. While I do like both of these franchises for very different reasons I was not really looking forward to UFC taking on more of a WWE approach to how they do their fights. We already have enough theatrics in that sport that kind of take away from the actual MMA aspect of it, which is what it is meant to be all about.
I don't want the UFC to turn into a popularity contest that is dependent upon who has the best microphone skills and ring walk.
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While the UFC / WWE merger was still in the works, Israel Adesanya did a walk out using The Undertaker's music and even donned his hat and his iconic urn. While some may have really enjoyed this I was just thinking that this was a sign of bad things to come. I appreciate those sort of side show theatrics in WWE and it is a big part of the reason why a fake sport is so popular. I do NOT want it to become part of UFC though and I get irritated when fighters with the biggest mouths end up getting fights that I don't think they deserve.
We all have to face the fact that UFC is a business and if they can create a card that is going to pull in PPV views they are going to do the fight, even though on paper these fights often don't make any sense. I case and point is the stupid BMF belt which routinely features fighters that aren't even the champions in their own weight class, so how the hell can they possibly be the "baddest mo fo?"
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I believe this belt to be a scourge on the sport
I had also feared that if the merger went through that UFC and WWE would start to cross promote and we would start to see UFC stars participating in WWE matches and hell, that is probably still going to happen. Whatever I guess, I rarely watch WWE these days anymore but a lot of people do seeing as how the company is worth near $10 billion.
So what does this mean for fans of either sport
Fortunately, at least for now, it appears as though it is going to have almost zero impact on either promotion. They both will continue to have their own leadership that is independent from the other and the executives in charge of WWE are not going to be given any say as to how UFC is run and vice-versa.
As far as we can tell at this point, this merger is intended only to increase the power that both groups have in terms of negotiating terms with broadcasters who will now be competing for the overall rights to broadcast both UFC and WWE. This will end up being a contract that is worth more than likely any other sport other than NFL in America.
It also give the companies and opportunity to sell streaming packages that include both WWE and UFC content, which I suppose there is likely a bit audience for. WWE actually has a much broader audience globally (in terms of number of countries it is broadcast in) and there are a ton of WWE fans that probably don't even know who folks like Sean Strickland or Israel Adesanya even are but they know Daniel Bryan's moves, ring song, and iconic moves.
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In my mind there is an opportunity for this merger to really screw up in particular the UFC. However, seeing as how UFC is the larger and more powerful of the two companies in this merger, I don't think they are going to be willing to hand over the Roman Reigns for just any sort of bizarre marketing idea the people over at WWE come up with.
For now those of us that were afraid like I was that this could turn into a shitshow for UFC can breathe easy as their partnership seems to be merely a collective bargaining agreement of sorts. Let's hope that doesn't change.