The Culture Clash between Pro Wrestling, Boxing, and MMA

[IrishCanadian25]

A Position Piece by IrishCanadian25​

Watching Monday Night Raw as I have done every Monday night since it's inception so many years ago, I tried my hardest to really become involved in the Floyd Mayweather / Paul Wight angle. Try as I might, I kept answering the beckoning call of washing dishes, doing laundry, and watching grass grow.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the lawn...

WWE listened to wrestling fans and made Mayweather the heel, and Big Show the face. All of a sudden, I was interested. Mayweather plays a natural heel, doesn't he? And then it hit me - he doesn't PLAY a heel. He IS a heel! He is arrogant, obnoxious, rich, and above all, talented. Without Rey Mysterio, Mayweather had no home in getting over with wrestling fans as a face, and it made me wonder why.

It's the culture of Professional Wrestling.

Despite what we say here on the Internet, professional wrestling fans have this innate respect FOR professional wrestlers, past and present. We have, because of the breakdown of the kayfabe wall, read about the struggles these athletes go through to break into the business at tremendous personal risk for injury, addiction, and bankruptcy. As a result, much like the wrestlers themselves, we are very defensive about professional wrestling. Fans don't allow just any hot shot to come in and think they can hack it in this ring. When the Raw segment disintegrated into a shoot because Mayweather's pathetic, overweight posse of Fat Albert rejects decided they would step to the "fake" wrestlers, they almost got bitch-slapped on national TV.

I also thought to myself "Why is WWE pushing this Mayweather invasion so hard?" I understand Vince's desire to draw the "casual, fringe fan" back to the WWE with mainstream exposure matches such as this one, or last year's McMahon vs Trump scuffle. But why pro boxing? And moreover, who needs who more? Does Pro Boxing NEED Pro Wrestling? Or is it the other way around?

As usual, I did some research.

In May of 2007, Floyd Mayweather faced Oscar de la Hoya in a Pay Per View boxing event. To put this into perspective for non-boxing fans who follow wrestling, this is the equivalent of Hulk Hogan coming out of retirement to face John Cena. The classic, all-time great vs the up-and-coming young superstar. We saw the dynamic in action at Wrestlemania X8 with the Hogan / Rock staredown. It polarized us.

I could not find the final pay per view buys for Wrestlemania 18, but I did find that Wrestlemania 23 (just last year) did 1.2 million buys. Mayweather vs de la Hoya did 2.15 million, roughly double what Wrestlemania 23 did! In December 2006, UFC broke it's own record with Liddel vs Ortiz, which did 1.05 million buys, only 150,000 less than Wrestlemania 23.

So maybe boxing isn't a dying sport - I guess it's just the heavyweight division. But look at those numbers. People are calling for the death of professional boxing as a result of UFC's entry in the market, but here's some more research.

In November of 2006, a professional boxing and UFC event were aired on Pay Per View simultaneously. Same time, same date. Both companies did their normal PPV numbers, give or take a VERY small percentage. Professional boxing's target market is males ages 50+. UFC focuses in on males ages 18-35. Same target market as professional wrestling.

Couple those facts with the rumored retirement of Floyd Mayweather, and you have one undisputed fact. Professional Wrestling needs this boxing angle to go off in order to try to capture new markets with mainstream exposure. With Mayweather planning to retire anyway, professional boxing doesn't need Floyd to do this for their sport. If WWE is going to hold off the charging UFC, it needs to spend a few bucks to tap into the boxing market, and that means a culture clash that may alter how we look at the two sports for years to come.

 

[Slim Pickns]

When comparing your boxing numbers to WWE/UFC you forgot one major variable. The UFC and WWE put on one PPV a month where as boxing really only puts on one or two superfights a year. If you throw out the Mayweather De la Hoya fight boxing has been doing horrible. Hopkins vs Taylor for the middleweight belt was an important fight that didn't get much attention and the heavyweights are an embarressment. Mayweather draws, boxing doesn't.

I'm sure there is someone who knows more than me about WWE buyrates, but the fact that they get as any buys as they do every month would probably suggest that they do better.

 

[RuKDaD]

Its pretty much the same with what happened Monday on RAW. American culture (outside of wrestling) see wrestling as a fake put on show and they see boxing and MMA as real. Because of different weight classes, boxing gets more monthly buys than WWE. Because on a WWE pay per view you get all your champions on one card on one night, with boxing this week you will get one lightweight prizefight and undercard and next week you will get a heavyweight prizefight with undercard.

 

[ExtremeIronChef]

I searched and found that Wrestlemania 18 did a 1.6 million buyrate, which is about 800,000 buys. Would have thought it would have been more due to Rock/Hogan but anyway.

I personally feel that wrestling, or WWE in particular, doesn't need boxing or MMA to do good business. This has been proven before. WWE has UFC and other MMA promotions beaten... for now anyway, but we're talking about the here and now I presume. Anyway, of course it's as you said: Vince wants to draw back the casual fan into the product. Fans that maybe watched during the Attitude era but have been put off in past years because of a watered down product. That whole "shoot" on monday night may not have been a shoot at all, regardless of what people are reporting. If it wasn't, then Vince's job is done. Does Vince want people to think wrestling is real again perhaps, or give WWE a better image to sell to the people who only watch MMA or boxing?

Sorry, but I probably didn't answer anything and just rambled. This is the best I can do for now.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Honestly IC, I think this extends soooooo faroutside of the realm of what we see on TV. The lines are drawn in sand SO starkly between fans of the seperate sports at times, that its only natural for wrestling fans to boo boxers, and the like.

Becuase generally, fans of "real" sports, look down upon, and scoff at wrestling. Its all drawn in HIGH portions of ignorance, stereo types, and pop culture. right now, MMA, is "cool" and a flavor of the month. The fans of the sport, try to be "cool" with it, and put wrestling down as "fake pussy shit" (as I have heard it reffered to before)...even though, all the while, MMA is borrowing from WWE's theatrics, and showmanship more and more all the time. Wrestling fans feel disrespected, and MMA fans are genrally pretty contrived in their support for their sport. They feel as if they are a part of something, something new and rising, and that can cause some (not all) fans to become overzealous in putting others down. Thats why the Lesnar interets was SO high. do you think if it was Brock Lesnat, just becoming an MMA rookie without his WWE past it wouldve been so big? NO. But the MMA fans were sooo excited to see the fromer guy from the "fake pussy shit" loose, so they would be further vindicated. It was cultures clashing.

Same thing for Boxing almost, just in reverse sequence. As MMA has picked up some of the theatrics and showmanship of wrestling as its popularity is rising, Boxing has begun to do the same during its decline. You didnt ever see guys fighting at weigh ins, entrance music, and all the other dramatics as you do now. But Boxing is dying in popularity, for a number of reasons, and wrestling has a certain amount of sustained popularity. So boxing attempts to tap into some of the things that they think help that. But its the same looked down upon, scoffing to fans of wrestling, from fans of boxing.

Both sports borrow major aspects of wrestling, while many fans, and particpants in both areas, to a almost majority degree, look down upon wrestling, and dont take it all seriously, and try to make a joke of it. And both try so hard to push themselves as the most legit "coolest" thing around, almost to a degree of it being contrived, while all the while BORROWING things that Pro Wrestling was making money off of FIRST. I think Wrestling fans dont like that fans of the other two sports refuse to recognize Wrestling as something legit, or even good, but can so blatantly use very intergal aspects of wrestling. So yes, there are some pretty strong anomosity between a large sect of the fans of the sports, as evidenced from the current storyline, although the factthat people hate mayweather anyway also factors in a very large part.

Wrestling Vs boxing stretches back as far as anyone can remeber, ala Muhammed Ali Vs Antonio Inoki. And now, with the rise of MMA, the rivalry, has become a triple threat.