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UFC: Have the UFC and MMA Officially Eclipsed the WWE and Pro Wrestling?

The UFC is beginning to occupy the niche in American society that professional wrestling once had. What particular niche is that, you ask?Children and young teenagers used to look up to professional wrestlers as if they were the closest thing to r…

The UFC is beginning to occupy the niche in American society that professional wrestling once had.

What particular niche is that, you ask?

Children and young teenagers used to look up to professional wrestlers as if they were the closest thing to real-life superheroes.

There’s not a person alive who grew up in the ’90s who didn’t know about Hulk Hogan and didn’t heed his wise words about taking vitamins and saying prayers.

Furthermore, what ’90s toybox was complete without a wrestling ring and hordes of wrestling figures?

Professional wrestling was on top of the earth. It was the “sport” that captivated the youth of the time period.

Mixed martial arts is currently doing just that—and more.

While the UFC’s image was once too brutal for children, this is changing.

MMA fans with sharp memories will remember two children at the UFC 135 press conference in Denver. Their presence alone signified that the UFC product and brand had begun to pervade the youth.

The UFC’s inroads into the niche occupied by professional wrestling can also be seen in another crucial area of both businesses: merchandising.

The WWE was a trailblazer in the merchandising of professional wrestling. If it existed, Vince McMahon saw that a WWE logo was slapped on it and it was sold. From paper lunchbags to WWE-themed hockey games.

The WWE is still king in this regard but the UFC is catching up and is light years ahead of where they were when Zuffa purchased the company in 2001.

Is your kid a UFC fan? Then there are a multitude of action figures you can buy him/her and even a miniature Octagon playset that you can take on the road with you. For the parents looking to spend more money, you can purchase a cage bed for your little ankle-biter

Outlandish characters like Chael Sonnen are also helping MMA transition into the role that professional wrestling once occupied.

Sonnen’s antics have been compared to pro wrestling “heels” before and the comparison is a valid one (except Sonnen’s verbiage isn’t scripted). Look at the most recent Chael Sonnen shirt that has been made. Does that not remind you at least a little bit of something out of professional wrestling?

The truth is that while the professional wrestling industry and the WWE falter, MMA and the UFC continue to grow.

Such a change is not to be maligned by UFC fans as it will signify that the UFC and MMA have truly taken their proper place in the American popular culture landscape.

The UFC and MMA are moving into the societal niche that the WWE and pro wrestling created.

Instead of kids looking up to Hulk Hogan and teens loving the wild antics of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, they will look up to Jon Jones and love the antics of men like and Nick Diaz; MMA fighters will become the rock stars of their time, just like the big pro wrestlers were.

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Strikeforce Results: Questions Answered and Lessons Learned

Strikeforce: Melendez vs. Masvidal is over. Gilbert Melendez proved his dominance over Jorge Masvidal, and Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos steamrolled over her Japanese opponent. There were other fights on the card that taught important lessons and answ…

Strikeforce: Melendez vs. Masvidal is over. Gilbert Melendez proved his dominance over Jorge Masvidal, and Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos steamrolled over her Japanese opponent.

There were other fights on the card that taught important lessons and answered lingering questions the MMA world had about certain fighters.

What was revealed inside Strikeforce’s Octagon? Read and find out!

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UFC: Why Adding Women’s Divisions Would Be a Brilliant Move by the UFC

Women fight just as hard as men, if not harder. They deserve a place in the UFC, they deserve a place alongside Georges St.Pierre and Anderson Silva. Detractors of women’s MMA (hereafter abbreviated as WMMA) would deny this and say that WMMA doesn…

Women fight just as hard as men, if not harder. They deserve a place in the UFC, they deserve a place alongside Georges St.Pierre and Anderson Silva.

Detractors of women’s MMA (hereafter abbreviated as WMMA) would deny this and say that WMMA doesn’t belong in the UFC. Some would even say that it shouldn’t exist at all!

But there are several reasons why the UFC should seriously consider adding women’s divisions to the UFC.

First, women’s fights are entertaining. They are often the most fun to watch on the card because the women feel a constant need to prove themselves just as good as the men; they feel the need to prove that comparing WMMA with the “boring” WNBA is misguided.

Adding two women’s divisions—women’s featherweight and women’s bantamweight—would also give the UFC two more titles to place on the card, bringing the total to 10 titles (when you include the newly announced flyweight division).

The UFC is one of the fastest growing sports entities in the world and two more legitimate titles will help bolster cards that would otherwise be weak. There will be cards that WMMA can help since Dana White once said he plans to hold 100 events a year.

Adding women to the UFC would also give the UFC a unique (for them) marketing angle: Sex appeal.

One of the (sad) truths of WMMA is that looks matter—a lot. The rule that sex sells applies to WMMA just as it does to the music industry or any other industry based around celebrity culture.

No offense to Junior Dos Santos, but the young male demographic doesn’t want a poster of him on their walls.

The WMMA world had Gina Carano and is now is having more stars come out of the woodwork with Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate.

As Rousey and Tate become more popular and grow the sport, more women will get involved and there will be more stars to help the UFC and WMMA climb to new heights.

Furthermore, adding women to the UFC would make the UFC appear to be the most progressive of all the major sports organizations. It would give the UFC moral high ground over organizations like the NFL and show that the UFC truly is the sports company of the future.

All of these reasons would mean that the UFC would be in a good position for future growth.

WMMA would draw more women into the sport and, in doing so, captivate a whole bloc of society. Over the course of a generation, millions of households will have been raised on the UFC product and it will surge in popularity even more than it has since 1993.

Bringing women into the sport would be a tremendous boon to long-term growth, although maybe an inhibitor in the short term due to narrow-minded individuals who loathe the sport and don’t view women as equals.

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Where Are They Now: The Fates of 11 Missing Men from the UFC

Fame is fleeting, especially so in MMA where you’re only as good as your last fight.There have been various prominent figures throughout MMA history, but several of them, both old and (relatively) new, have seemingly vanished into thin air; they haven’…

Fame is fleeting, especially so in MMA where you’re only as good as your last fight.

There have been various prominent figures throughout MMA history, but several of them, both old and (relatively) new, have seemingly vanished into thin air; they haven’t been discussed by anyone in quite some time.

So which fighters are “lost” to the majority of MMA fans and what have they been doing these days? Read and find out!

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MMA: The 5 Biggest Pretenders in Each Weight Class

There are contenders and there are pretenders. Unfortunately, many fans have trouble telling the difference.When a fighter wins (even against poor competition) some fans hop on what’s called a “bandwagon” and talk that fighter up like he’s the next big…

There are contenders and there are pretenders. Unfortunately, many fans have trouble telling the difference.

When a fighter wins (even against poor competition) some fans hop on what’s called a “bandwagon” and talk that fighter up like he’s the next big thing.

Most of the time, these bandwagons are abandoned when the fighter loses and he becomes known as the next big thing that wasn’t (see: Brandon Vera).

So who are the biggest pretenders in each weight class in modern MMA? Read and find out!

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Miguel Torres Fired: Has FOX Forced the UFC’s Image To Finally Grow Up?

Miguel Torres was fired for an insensitive comment made on twitter. Does this signify a paradigm shift in the way the UFC works?The UFC has been no stranger to controversial remarks and actions as of late.There was the incident where Quinton “Rampage” …

Miguel Torres was fired for an insensitive comment made on twitter. Does this signify a paradigm shift in the way the UFC works?

The UFC has been no stranger to controversial remarks and actions as of late.

There was the incident where Quinton “Rampage” Jackson “motorboated” MMA reporter Karyn Bryant, and there was the incident where UFC commentator Joe Rogan called reporter Maggie Hendricks, “cunty.”

There were even more bad things that came up later in the year.

There was the time when Forrest Griffin tweeted “rape is the new missionary,” and more recently when Rashad Evans said he’d put his hands on Penn State graduate Phil Davis worse than Sandusky did to his victims.

These problems were swept under the rug by UFC brass.

In a recent interview, UFC president Dana White dismissed Griffin’s tweet as social commentary and Evans’ remarks as something born in the heat of the moment.

But Miguel Torres’ tweet about rape vans was apparently one step too many.

Torres’ tweet earned him no laughs and a spot on the unemployment line.

Does this mean that the UFC, who has always prided itself on not muzzling its fighters, has finally “grown up?” Is the UFC now policing its fighters more due to entering the mainstream? Are the days of Dana White’s t-shirts and foul mouth over?

It would seem like that’s the case, but it isn’t. Dana White himself has recently shed light on the issue.

Upon hearing that Torres’ tweet was just a joke, White wasn’t happy. “His sense of humor and mine are a little different, apparently,” he said.

“It’s just not something you tweet. … There’s no explanation for it. … Use a little common sense.”

However, White’s dismissal of Torres has nothing to do with the UFC’s deal with FOX and subsequent emergence into the mainstream.

“I’m not going to be pressured by the media, by the fans or by anybody else to go in and attack my guys when they make a mistake. I’m not going to come out with these canned written statements from our lawyers. We’re going to handle this thing honestly and…like everybody would in real life.”

“This is a very lenient company,” White said. “I’m very lenient and I’m very open-minded and I’m very realistic on what should be put on these guys as human beings. It’s such an easy place to work as far as your conduct and everything else.”

Torres’ expulsion from the UFC aside, it appears as though the company isn’t about to become the NFL in terms of the strict image its athletes and coaches are forced to maintain at all times (even the boisterous Rex Ryan isn’t immune from the wrath of the No Fun League).

Even though it’s unfortunate that Torres is gone (he was one of the few fighters with a truly excellent guard), it’s comforting to see that the UFC isn’t “selling out” and become bland and corporate like the other major sports organizations.

The UFC’s greatest strength is that it has a connection to the demographic like no other sport. This is in part due to the fact that White handles PR problems in his own way and not with the aforementioned canned legal statements.

Thus, Torres’ forced departure is just a hiccup on the UFC’s road to the top.

The company has already managed to attune itself to the zeitgeist of the current generation by not “playing by the rules.” Success is bound to follow, with Miguel Torres or without.

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