Report: A UFC Vs. WWE War In The Works?, Backstage News
According to a recent report in The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, even though Vince McMahon has outwardly said that MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) is not the company's competition, behind-the-scenes actions seem to be telling a different story.
WWE has always made arenas sign agreements that they will not book a competing event in the arena either 30 days before or after one of their live events. This dates back to the 1980s wrestling wars as it enabled WWE to run the major arena in an area once every two months and force the competition to run in a smaller arena in the same market and come across as the lesser event of the two. This was sort of a two-way-street though as a lot of the regional wrestling promoters in that day had the same kind of deals and could keep Vince out of the traditional wrestling arena in a specific market as well. Some big market arenas quite frankly refused to play politics with either side and booked whoever they wanted to.
This really doesn't hold strong as it relates to the wrestling business today considering WWE mostly only runs big arenas that TNA would never book an event at. However, TNA still can't come into some mid-sized arenas 30 days before or after that WWE would run for smaller events. What makes things interesting now as it relates to "competition" is that with the MMA boom in the United States, WWE has quietly told arenas this year that any MMA event now constitutes as competition for their fan base and are reportedly making it clear that they don't want an MMA show within 30 days in either direction of their live events. So, WWE is now considering MMA events as direct competition even though UFC is the only MMA promotion with the biggest presence overall.
This might come as a surprise to some people as the general opinion is that pro wrestling and MMA are two totally different things (real vs. fake argument). However, from a television standpoint the only two promotions WWE tracks ratings for as "competition" are TNA and UFC. It should be noted that Lane Collyer of the Extreme Fight Night group (based in Alabama) has had to move dates in the state three times this year at the insistence of WWE. Collyer has been very vocal about having to move the dates as he felt the fan bases aren't the same at all. WWE making those kind of moves has surprised many considering a more state-based smaller MMA group like Extreme Fight Night more than likely would have zero impact on a gate for a WWE event.