Why the WWE is good for the UFC

According to several sources, Shane McMahon, the silver-spoon-sucking son of World Wrestling Entertainment mastermind Vince McMahon and sometimes wrestler, is looking to buy a minority financial interest in the UFC. I know this is not going to win me any friends at FightingWords, but I think it’s awesome.

First, he’ll be able to help market the UFC more effectively. He’s put Hulk Hogan and John Cena T-shirts in every boy’s closet in North America and he’s delivered the all-American WWE image to countless countries around the world and he’ll do the same for the UFC. He’ll build the brand from its current niche market – no matter how much UFC president Dana White talks about the UFC being as big as football or basketball, it’s still small potatoes in the global sports arena.

But the addition of McMahon, should it happen, will also have a much simpler yet more profound effect: he’ll bring showmanship to the show.

People have been talking smack about Brock Lesnar bringing his WWE antics into the octagon for a while now and this will only add fuel to the fire. Which I’m down with, ‘cause I’m a pyro.

Since childhood, the WWE has been providing me with some of my favourite things in life: a spectacle of violence and scantly clad woman wrapped in soap opera melodrama; television Pablum distilled to its most basic elements, easy to digest no matter how wasted I am on the couch. God bless ‘em.

The McMahon family has been bringing us sex, violence and hullabaloo since before Dana White was a glint in his daddy’s eye and MMA fans disparage such antics. However, for many, I believe it’s our guilty little pleasure.

Many of us watched Anna Kournikova without any love of tennis. We watched Mike Tyson long past his best before date as a boxer: “I want to eat his children!” Unfortunately, I will remember Jesse Taylor and Junie Browning long after contenders with far superior talents have faded into memory.

These theatrics have always existed in MMA. Have we forgotten the Kimos and Baronis, the circus atmosphere of PRIDE, the ramblings of Rampage, the David-and-Goliath matches with Fedor and Hong Man Choi? Hell, the UFC has such characters that the “dreaded” WWE snagged Tank Abbot and Ken Shamrock away from it.

I watch MMA because I love the physicality of it, the technique, the strategy, the god-given talent and yes, the spectacle. The spectacle does not necessarily cheapen or distract from the sport, it can possibly even enhance it. It puts asses in seats and that means more money and more money means better talent and better fights.

I’d like to say I watch MMA (or any sport for that matter) solely for the athleticism, but I’d be lying. And I don’t think I’m the only one.