Tag: pro wrestling

MMA Alternate History: What if the WWE Purchased the UFC in 2001 Instead of Zuffa?


(McMahon poses with legendary WWE manager Paul Bearer (RIP). / Photo via Getty)

By Matt Saccaro

MMA history contains many compelling “what ifs” that could’ve changed the fate of the sport. If one path is taken, disaster. If another path is taken, absolution.

Some “what ifs” are more compelling than others. Not much changes if Floyd Sword or Rudyard Moncayo decides to never step into the cage. The timeline remains intact if Anderson Silva doesn’t get a DQ loss against Yushin Okami at Rumble on the Rock. But there are scenarios where the entire sport can change — where the timeline can split like in Back to the Future Part II.

This is the start of a series at CagePotato where we examine such scenarios, using historical fact to help create realistic historical fiction. Here is our first historical conundrum:

What if Vince McMahon Purchased the UFC in 2001?

In 2001, Vince McMahon’s WWE (then WWF) purchased the decaying WCW and the fledgling, bankrupt ECW. That year, McMahon’s XFL hosted its first (and only) season. It was quite a year for Vinny Mac. He destroyed his two rivals and expanded into a new sport.

2001 was also the year that Zuffa purchased the UFC from the company’s original owners, SEG. SEG was cash-strapped and could no longer carry the burden of running an MMA promotion in a country that was, at the time, hostile to MMA. The Fertitta Brothers bailed out Bob Meyrowitz and SEG, and the rest is history.

But what if, for one reason or another, The Fertitta brothers didn’t buy the UFC and give it to Dana White like they were tossing their kid the keys to the Ferrari? What if Vince McMahon decided to add another three letters to his shopping list…U, F, and C?


(McMahon poses with legendary WWE manager Paul Bearer (RIP). / Photo via Getty)

By Matt Saccaro

MMA history contains many compelling “what ifs” that could’ve changed the fate of the sport. If one path is taken, disaster. If another path is taken, absolution.

Some “what ifs” are more compelling than others. Not much changes if Floyd Sword or Rudyard Moncayo decides to never step into the cage. The timeline remains intact if Anderson Silva doesn’t get a DQ loss against Yushin Okami at Rumble on the Rock. But there are scenarios where the entire sport can change — where the timeline can split like in Back to the Future Part II.

This is the start of a series at CagePotato where we examine such scenarios, using historical fact to help create realistic historical fiction. Here is our first historical conundrum:

What if Vince McMahon Purchased the UFC in 2001?

In 2001, Vince McMahon’s WWE (then WWF) purchased the decaying WCW and the fledgling, bankrupt ECW. That year, McMahon’s XFL hosted its first (and only) season.  It was quite a year for Vinny Mac. He destroyed his two rivals and expanded into a new sport.

2001 was also the year that Zuffa purchased the UFC from the company’s original owners, SEG. SEG was cash-strapped and could no longer carry the burden of running an MMA promotion in a country that was, at the time, hostile to MMA. The Fertitta Brothers bailed out Bob Meyrowitz and SEG, and the rest is history.

But what if, for one reason or another, The Fertitta brothers didn’t buy the UFC and give it to Dana White like they were tossing their kid the keys to the Ferrari? What if Vince McMahon decided to add another three letters to his shopping list…U, F, and C?

After all, it was those letters — not anything else — that were the most important. Lorenzo Fertitta said the following to Fighters Only Magazine:

“I had my attorneys tell me that I was crazy because I wasn’t buying anything. I was paying $2 million and they were saying ‘What are you getting?’ And I said ‘What you don’t understand is I’m getting the most valuable thing that I could possibly have, which is those three letters: UFC. That is what’s going to make this thing work. Everybody knows that brand, whether they like it or they don’t like it, they react to it.’”

So what if Vince wound up with those letters and the power of the UFC brand?

It would’ve been bad — sport-killing level bad.

Commenters on MMA articles are always quick to point out that the WWE is “fake” and “gay” but what they likely don’t know is that the WWE once experimented with real, unscripted fighting in the form of quasi-mixed martial arts bouts in the late 1990s. It was a “shoot fighting” tournament called Brawl for All. And it sucked.

Don’t believe me? Here are two Brawl for All Matches: Steve Blackman vs. Marc Mero and Bart Gunn vs. “The Godfather”. Pretty shitty, right?

MMA and pro wrestling historian Jonathan Snowden explained the WWE’s reasoning behind this horrible tournament in his book Shooters: The Toughest Men in Professional Wrestling:

Actual mat wrestling on a professional wrestling program was a thing of the distant past. Brawl for All wasn’t a plan to bring it back either. Instead, it was busy-work for the WWF’s extra talent, guys kind of milling around in the back that the bookers had no plans for. They didn’t want to let anyone go; after all, their competitor down south could scoop them up and potentially make something out of them. WWF had taken a WCW castoff, “Stunning” Steve Austin, and made him the biggest star in the industry.

There’s also some more to the Brawl for All story. The WWE wanted “Dr. Death” Steve Williams to win the tournament. It was supposed to enhance Williams’ tough-guy street cred en route to booking him in a big-money feud with Steve Austin. The WWE learned why wrestlers started fixing fights in the first place: real fights don’t always end in the most profitable outcome. Williams didn’t win. He was KTFO’d by the eventual tournament winner, Bart Gunn. After Gunn won the tournament, the WWE booked him in a legit fight with famed gimmick boxer Butterbean at WrestleMania. Butterbean smashed Gunn’s brain into atoms. Vince’s experiment in real fighting ended…but not in our alternate reality.

From the way that Vince used “MMA” historically, we can make educated guesses as to how he’d use it in a timeline where he finds himself at the helm of the UFC in 2001. What does he do?

He botches it worse than Brock Lesnar’s shooting star press.

The WWE’s roster was bloated in 2001. They had their own WWE “superstars” and the imports from WCW and ECW. In real history, the WWE begins “brand extension” in an attempt to mitigate this problem. They treated their shows, Raw and Smackdown, as separate brands so as to create “competition” between them. They even had a “draft” where each brand chose different wrestlers.

But in the alternate reality where Vince McMahon owned the UFC, what’s to say that McMahon didn’t set up the UFC as some sort of hybrid MMA-pro wrestling organization, as Pancrase on steroids (figuratively and literally)?

In this reality, the WWE would send its mid and low carders to the UFC for the same reasons they pushed their mid and low carders into Brawl for All: A. They weren’t doing anything with them anyway. B. You could potentially turn one into a star through their abilities at beating up untrained fighters.

Thus, the UFC becomes akin to the old Toughman Contests on FX except with more marketing dollars and glitz behind it. Even if the product caught on, the WWE name would’ve tainted anything that happened in the cage. Who would believe a great comeback was really a great comeback and not a work if the UFC and the WWE were run by the same people?

Questions like this, and the constant shuffling of superstars between the UFC and the WWE, would blur the lines between real and fake, and ultimately lead to MMA and pro wrestling being seen as one in the same.

Meanwhile, legitimate MMA would live on in Japan until Pride’s demise, while in the United States, a slew of King of the Cage-level promotions would unfortunately represent the biggest organizations that true fighters could ply their craft in.

This alternate reality is a sad one for the sport. The UFC becomes a failure akin to the XFL and actual MMA fighters struggle in obscurity.

Pro-Wrestling-Inspired MMA Move of The Day: Cambodian Fight Ends Via Boston Crab

Because every country needs to have its own MMA promotion these days, Cambodia’s Khmer Warrior Championship put on an event in Phnom Penh on Sunday, headlined by Soung Sovantha (never heard of him) vs. Bun Heang (never heard of him). You can check out the fights on the khmersexystars YouTube channel…or just watch our favorite one above, which pits Von Savy against Bun Mang. Yep, two dudes named Bun were on the same card. It is what it is.

The fight itself is pretty uneventful, up until the finish. The two fighters appear to have Muay Thai backgrounds from their stances, but neither Savy (red trunks) nor Mang (blue trunks) engaged much for the first couple of minutes. There is a lot of feeling out, a tiny bit of clinch work and two effective leg kicks from Savy.

Then, it happens.

Mang throws a left leg kick to the body that is caught by Savy, who sweeps his opponent off of his feet, grabs both of Mang’s feet by the ankles and locks on a freaking Boston Crab.

Anyone who has first-hand experience with high school locker room wrestling matches knows that the Boston Crab hold, popularized by Professional Wrestling, hurts a whole lot if you’re bad enough to let your opponent apply it.

Because every country needs to have its own MMA promotion these days, Cambodia’s Khmer Warrior Championship put on an event in Phnom Penh on Sunday, headlined by Soung Sovantha (never heard of him) vs. Bun Heang (never heard of him). You can check out all the fights on the khmersexystars YouTube channel…or just watch our favorite one above, which pits Von Savy against Bun Mang. Yep, two dudes named Bun were on the same card. It is what it is.

The fight itself is pretty uneventful, up until the finish. The two fighters appear to have Muay Thai backgrounds from their stances, but neither Savy (red trunks) nor Mang (blue trunks) engaged much for the first couple of minutes. There is a lot of feeling out, a tiny bit of clinch work and two effective leg kicks from Savy.

Then, it happens.

Mang throws a left leg kick to the body that is caught by Savy, who sweeps his opponent off of his feet, grabs both of Mang’s feet by the ankles and locks on a freaking Boston Crab.

Anyone who has first-hand experience with high school locker room wrestling matches knows that the Boston Crab hold, popularized by Professional Wrestling, hurts a whole lot if you’re bad enough to let your opponent apply it.

There is no reason a Boston Crab should happen in professional MMA match. I mean, some catch wrestler types like Dan “The Wolfman” Theodore pretend that variations of it can happen in fights but that guy’s a nut-job and so are most catch wrestlers, so we were totally caught by surprise here.

For it to work, the guy on the bottom has to be much worse/weaker on the ground than his opponent, and the guy on top has to be equal parts clueless and bad ass for even thinking he can get away with it.

In this Cambodian MMA bout, Savy was indeed bad ass enough and earned a tap-out via Boston Crab. Not to get too technical here but if we had to guess, we’d say that this modified Crab was probably putting more pressure on the ankles and knee than the back of the eventual loser, given the angle.

But really, who cares. Because, BOSTON CRAB IN MMA.

Now watch the above video, then find your buddies and do some stupid stuff.

– Elias Cepeda

Previously: What a Rush! The 14 Greatest (and 3 Worst) Pro-Wrestling Moves Used in MMA

Reliving Chuck Wepner vs. Andre the Giant: The Great American Freakshow We Somehow Forgot


(Wepner was tossed out of the ring in the third round, and lost the fight by count-out. Seems legit. Video of the fight is available after the jump.)

If you happen to be a connoisseur of MMA freak show bouts, it’s likely that you recognize June 25, 1976 as the day that “The Greatest of All Time” Muhammad Ali took on Japanese wrestling legend Antonio Inoki in a mixed rules bout. The fight itself may have been an unwatchable display of bizarre kicks from Inoki – who was only allowed to kick if one of his knees was touching the mat – but it’s remembered as one of our sport’s first genuine freak show bouts.

Yet often forgotten by even the most die-hard fight fans among us is that the undercard for Ali vs. Inoki contained a match between Chuck Wepner (the boxer/liquor salesman whose bout against Ali served as the inspiration for the Rocky series) and Andre the Giant broadcast live from Shea Stadium. Before we go any further: Yes, you read that last sentence correctly, and yes, we’ll have video evidence of this after the jump.

By 1976, Andre the Giant had established himself as an unstoppable juggernaut in professional wrestling, to the point that simply getting in a few good shots in a losing effort against him could put another wrestler over. He may not have been professional wrestling’s first “unbeatable giant” character, but he was certainly the most successful and popular portrayal of it. Naturally, when Vince McMahon Sr. faced the dilemma of finding an opponent for the division killer, he got the idea of having him defeat a real fighter. Chuck Wepner – who coincidentally was considering becoming a professional wrestler by this point in his career – was the ideal opponent.


(Wepner was tossed out of the ring in the third round, and lost the fight by count-out. Seems legit. Video of the fight is available after the jump.)

If you happen to be a connoisseur of MMA freak show bouts, it’s likely that you recognize June 25, 1976 as the day that “The Greatest of All Time” Muhammad Ali took on Japanese wrestling legend Antonio Inoki in a mixed rules bout. The fight itself may have been an unwatchable display of bizarre kicks from Inoki – who was only allowed to kick if one of his knees was touching the mat – but it’s remembered as one of our sport’s first genuine freak show bouts.

Yet often forgotten by even the most die-hard fight fans among us is that the undercard for Ali vs. Inoki contained a match between Chuck Wepner (the boxer/liquor salesman whose bout against Ali served as the inspiration for the Rocky series) and Andre the Giant broadcast live from Shea Stadium. Before we go any further: Yes, you read that last sentence correctly, and yes, we’ll have video evidence of this after the jump.

By 1976, Andre the Giant had established himself as an unstoppable juggernaut in professional wrestling, to the point that simply getting in a few good shots in a losing effort against him could put another wrestler over. He may not have been professional wrestling’s first “unbeatable giant” character, but he was certainly the most successful and popular portrayal of it. Naturally, when Vince McMahon Sr. faced the dilemma of finding an opponent for the division killer, he got the idea of having him defeat a real fighter. Chuck Wepner – who coincidentally was considering becoming a professional wrestler by this point in his career – was the ideal opponent.

As you probably figured out by reading that last paragraph, the fight itself was a blatant work. A loss to Wepner would have killed Andre the Giant’s “unbeatable” aura, and probably his career in general. There was absolutely no way that McMahon was going to let one of his biggest draws fizzle out while fans were still willing to pay to watch him (Ironically, McMahon Jr. would allow this to happen twenty years later). Meanwhile, a loss would do nothing to Wepner’s reputation; if you’re famous for losing to Muhammad Ali, a loss to The Eighth Wonder of the World isn’t exactly going to bury you.

Perhaps the worked shoot nature of the “fight” is why Wepner vs. Andre the Giant has been all but forgotten by fight fans, while Ali vs. Inoki is still regarded as one of the first mainstream MMA bouts. The match may have fooled fans from an era that still sanctioned and licensed professional wrestling as if it were a legitimate competition, but even the dimmest fight fans of today can tell that something isn’t quite right when watching the video. From professional wrestling matches filling out the rest of the undercard, to a member of the McMahon family providing the commentary, to Gorilla Monsoon being Andre the Giant’s cornerman, to the post-fight brawl in the ring, there are way too many obvious signs that the action wasn’t exactly 100% organic. The fact that Chuck Wepner has recently opened up about the “entertainment” aspect of the fight doesn’t exactly help guard the illusion, either.

Interestingly enough, the most “fake” parts of the bout – from what appears to be a botched atomic drop to Andre throwing Wepner over the top rope – were possibly the only unscripted events to take place that evening. Rumor has it that by the third round, Wepner decided he’d throw his most powerful punches at Andre the Giant. Andre – who had a reputation for shooting on wrestlers who he felt were working too stiff with him -decided that he would get behind Wepner and pick him up, just to demonstrate that he could seriously hurt Wepner if he wanted to (he allegedly did the same thing to a young Hulk Hogan). When Wepner didn’t take the hint, Andre decided to skip to the planned finish right then and there – Wepner’s compliance be damned.

For better or for worse, Chuck Wepner vs. Andre the Giant was one of the first mainstream American mixed rules bouts, which took place thirty-seven years ago today. Whether or not you can still sit through it today depends on whether or not you appreciate oldschool professional wrestling, but odds are good that if you’re a cinema buff, you have an appreciation for Stallone’s recreation of it.

@SethFalvo

Pro-Wrestling-Style Finishing Move of the Day: Anderson Ramos Wins Via Back Suplex Side Slam [VIDEO]

(Props: Giovani Brugnago via DamnSevern)

This quick ‘n’ nasty video was taken two Saturdays ago at a regional Brazilian promotion called Hawk Fight Championship, and features a dude named Anderson “Adele” Ramos (seriously?) knocking out his opponent with the kind of high-altitude body-slam that you don’t usually see outside of a pro-wrestling match. Though the move looked eerily familiar, I wasn’t sure what to call it, so I asked our resident pro-wrestling historian Seth Falvo if he could lend some assistance. After doing a bit of YouTube research, he directed me to this video of a “Back Suplex Side Slam,” and further explained via e-mail:

“It turns out no one used it as a finisher/trademarked a name for it that I can tell. I checked Undertaker, Dr Death, Bam Bam, Backlund, Taz, Kane, DDP…fucking no one named it anything. Vince McMahon’s famous “Whattamaneuver!” is probably it’s unofficial name.”

So there you have it. The Back Suplex Side Slam. Cue shooting star/piano music.


(Props: Giovani Brugnago via DamnSevern)

This quick ‘n’ nasty video was taken two Saturdays ago at a regional Brazilian promotion called Hawk Fight Championship, and features a dude named Anderson “Adele” Ramos (seriously?) knocking out his opponent with the kind of high-altitude body-slam that you don’t usually see outside of a pro-wrestling match. Though the move looked eerily familiar, I wasn’t sure what to call it, so I asked our resident pro-wrestling historian Seth Falvo if he could lend some assistance. After doing a bit of YouTube research, he directed me to this video of a “Back Suplex Side Slam,” and further explained via e-mail:

“It turns out no one used it as a finisher/trademarked a name for it that I can tell. I checked Undertaker, Dr Death, Bam Bam, Backlund, Taz, Kane, DDP…fucking no one named it anything. Vince McMahon’s famous “Whattamaneuver!” is probably it’s unofficial name.”

So there you have it. The Back Suplex Side Slam. Cue shooting star/piano music.

Triple H Defeats Former UFC Champion Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 29

Narrowly avoiding an end to his career by contract stipulation, 13-time WWE/WWF/World Heavyweight Champion Triple H defeated former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar in a “No Holds Barred Match” at WrestleMania XXIX in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium….

Narrowly avoiding an end to his career by contract stipulation, 13-time WWE/WWF/World Heavyweight Champion Triple H defeated former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar in a “No Holds Barred Match” at WrestleMania XXIX in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium.

Per professional wrestling rules, Triple H (a.k.a. Hunter Hearst Helmsley) won his match with Lesnar by a three-count pinfall.

Both men exchanged several MMA and wrestling moves during their time in the event, with a “No Holds Barred” stipulation allowing the use of weapons and foreign objects.

After trading potentially fight-ending kimura submission maneuvers, Triple H got the better of Lesnar despite being beaten throughout most of the match, in addition to being slammed through the Spanish announcers’ table.

Things ended during a sequence where Triple H “hit” Lesnar with a sledgehammer to the head, followed by a Pedigree (double underhook facebuster) on a set of steel steps that had been thrown into the ring earlier.

The three-time WWE champion Lesnar re-signed with the company in April 2012 after a two-year, 11-month career with the UFC, where he also captured and successfully retained the UFC heavyweight championship.

During Lesnar‘s short stint in MMA, he defeated the likes of Frank Mir, Randy Couture and Shane Carwin, quickly becoming the UFC’s biggest pay-per-view star.

Lesnar would eventually lose his title to current UFC champion Cain Velasquez and retire after a loss to former Strikeforce champion Alistair Overeem.

Since returning to the WWE after his crippling back-to-back UFC losses, Lesnar has gone 1-2 in the ring, with his lone win in the past year coming against Triple H at SummerSlam 2012 in a “No Disqualifications” match via submission by kimura.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Meanwhile, in Professional Wrestling: Don Frye and Yoshihiro Takayama Have Sloppy, Kayfabe Rematch [VIDEO]


(Props: MiddleEasy)

I’ll get this out of the way up front: I’m not exactly a fan of remakes. Attempting to improve something that most people think is fine as-is usually results in the creation of something indefensibly stupid (like that 2002 remake of Rollerball) that will make everyone feel terrible about themselves (like how anyone who paid to watch that 2002 remake of Rollerball felt). This is especially true when the people remaking something completely miss the point of what they’re remaking, and decide to take out all the parts with social commentary and replace them with explosions and sideboob (You get the point).

So I guess it goes without saying that when All Japan Pro Wrestling attempted to recreate Don Frye and Yoshihiro Takayama’s PRIDE 21 encounter during a professional wrestling match last Sunday, I wasn’t exactly a fan. The fact that it happened during a tag team match also featuring Masayuki Kono and Keiji Mutoh didn’t exactly help things for me. Two things before we go any further – yes, fellow wrestling nerds, Keiji Mutoh used to be The Great Muta and no, I didn’t know he was still alive, either.

Video awaits after the jump.


(Props: MiddleEasy)

I’ll get this out of the way up front: I’m not exactly a fan of remakes. Attempting to improve something that most people think is fine as-is usually results in the creation of something indefensibly stupid (like that 2002 remake of Rollerball) that will make everyone feel terrible about themselves (like how anyone who paid to watch that 2002 remake of Rollerball felt). This is especially true when the people remaking something completely miss the point of what they’re remaking, and decide to take out all the parts with social commentary and replace them with explosions and sideboob (You get the point).

So I guess it goes without saying that when All Japan Pro Wrestling attempted to recreate Don Frye and Yoshihiro Takayama’s PRIDE 21 encounter during a professional wrestling match last Sunday, I wasn’t exactly a fan. The fact that it happened during a tag team match also featuring Masayuki Kono and Keiji Mutoh didn’t exactly help things for me. Two things before we go any further – yes, fellow wrestling nerds, Keiji Mutoh used to be The Great Muta and no, I didn’t know he was still alive, either.

Things start off fine, as Don Frye cuts a totally insane promo for the bout (obviously) and then everyone makes their way to the ring. And then the actual match starts, and everything completely goes to shit. Masayuki Kono and Keiji Mutoh demonstrate how an MMA fight would look if one of the participants could barely move after spending nearly thirty years as a professional wrestler and the other participant tried to slow down enough to make his partner look agile. Seriously, you may just want to skip to the 8:16 mark of the video.


06. Mutoh & Frye vs Takayama & Kono – (AJPW 03… by SenorLARIATO

Frye and Takayama give the crowd an extended hug, some light shoulder punches and sloppy suplexes that vaguely resembled their PRIDE encounter the same way that Celine Deon’s cover of “You Shook Me All Night Long” vaguely resembles something a person with a soul and a personality would enjoy. Their original encounter was so incredibly dramatic and awesome because it was all very real, despite looking like something straight out of professional wrestling. Their kayfabe recreation, where even the dimmest fans in the audience knew that it was fake, never had a chance at being more than a rest period for Kono and Mutoh.

This wasn’t exactly twenty minutes of lucha libre, but you wouldn’t know it by how badly all four men gassed out by the end. But at least we were given Don Frye stomping on Masayuki Kono until he let go of what sort-of resembled an armbar, so, you know, there’s that.

@SethFalvo