MMA is the new pro-wrestling

[The Naitch]

Heard this many times before. Discuss

[Furious Beardsley]

I've heard that as well, but they are really 2 entirely different animals. WWE and other pro-wrestling companies are about the entertainment value and storylines (though they don't do the storylines so well anymore). MMA is about who get the most shots in while beating the hell out of each other, so to speak. That's a generalized view of MMA I realize, but that's how a lot people see it.

In MMA as well you also have to actually earn the title belt you wear. In pro wrestling you are given it because they feel you can represent the company.

A major similarity though is that MMA is also marketing to kids with the UFC title belts and toys that you can now buy.

The PPV buy rates are higher for MMA as well.

Though there are major differences between the two, you could say that MMA is more popular, there are more adults that want to see real violence as opposed to scripted and choreographed family-friendly violence, but the child audience isn't there, from what I can tell, but I'm not to sure, I'm not really in tune with MMA.

[The Mask]

i can see how, i guess. it's like wrestling for grown ups. characters in the ufc are cash cows, and anyone who can hype up a fight will be quids in.

[The Naitch]

what I meant to say is that ever since we grew out of wrestling (around 2000), MMA has become our new wrestling

the same interest that MMA generates among adult males (18-35) is similar to the interest that WWE generated for us during the whole Attitude era

Before, the boys would get together to watch WWF PPV's. Now we don't do that. Now, we get together to watch UFC PPVs.

These days, the fighters have the same "aura" that pro wrestlers had. MMA seems to be the ''wrestling for grown ups''

Like say before 2005, what was keeping us interested? Wrestling died out say around 2001, and MMA became the thing in 2005 (around TUF1). In that 4 year gap, there was nothing keeping us interested.

I think that MMA is the evolution of pro-wrestling. Besides, didn't shoot fighting evolve into pro wrestling in the early days in Japan?

[Reavant]

in america too... wrestling split in the early 1900s one side went the way of the ncaa and the other went to a ring.