What would WWE look like if MMA was introduced in the 70s and 80s?

Misanthropist

Misanthropist

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I haven’t been a fan after early 2000’sh when the 90s stars I grew up watching left and I am seeing WWE crap all over lately so this got me wondering about this.

If UFC and Pride was introduced in mainstream in the 70s or 80s, would WWE still be that popular?

In the eyes the audience back then, which one would they be more likely to be hooked in?



 
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It'd still be popular of course. It's not like people didn't know it wasn't real back then. It'd be no different then how it is today. Maybe kayfabe would die quicker, but probably not.

Pride is a Japanese product, so I dont know why we're mentioning this. It'd have no chance of being popular in America in the 70s. People were still alive from World War 2 and most Japanese cartoons were dubbed and chopped up into pieces.
 
Not sure, but wrasslin' in the 80s was really fun and funny. That was the peak. Not just the WWF (as it was then called), but regional promotions which were often better.
 
WWE will always have more and better characters than MMA/UFC because they can pick and choose exactly what they want to convey to the fans

They literally get to decide what they do, say and all of the outcomes and tell the stories they want to

That is why I don't care about pressers or interviews of MMA fighters.. the only thing that matters is what happens in the cage, where in wrestling everything outside of it is just as important to the story.. the only story that matters in MMA is what happens when the fight starts
 
Misanthropist said:
I haven’t been a fan after early 2000’sh when the 90s stars I grew up watching left and I am seeing WWE crap all over lately so this got me wondering about this.

If UFC and Pride was introduced in mainstream in the 70s or 80s, would WWE still be that popular?

In the eyes the audience back then, which one would they be more likely to be hooked in?



Click to expand...

Hulk Hogan armbarring Andre the Giant just won't have the same cultural impact as this

hulkhogan-andrethegiant.gif
 
same cheesy fake stuff for weird fat land locked americans and some mexicans who like dudes wearing masks?
 
What's funny is other than Conor i've never seen a fighter who talk shit about WWE. It's always MMA fanboys who look like a bitch but want to feel tough by talking shit lmao
Fighters doesn't have inferiority complex and they now the difference between MMA and pro wrestling.
Dana, DC, Colby and Izzy were in the Wrestlemania and all of them except Colby got huge reaction
 
Boxing exsited, a lot of people may think 70s/80s was boxings heyday. Professional wrestling existed and sold out and kept growing. They just sold out Vegas 2 nights in a row with a total of 120-something thousand.
UFC could never, particularly with what I see here where it's just people complaining that it's dying, oversaturated etc. For all the times sherdoggers shit on WWE you sure do talk about it so much.
 
The same way it actually happened. They would have catered to different audiences with some but minimal crossover as has happened irl.

UFC built itself by taking a large part of the young male WWE audience in the mid 2000s. They were perfectly placed to do this by having WWE itself as their lead-in during their first TV deal.

When that happened, WWE turned its focus to appealing to children instead of young men.
 
The Kumite or the Best Of The Best
 
A few years ago, I rewatched a bunch of pro wrestling from when I was a kid and was astonished to realize that, technically, pro-wrestling rules were MMA rules: striking, wrestling, submissions all mixed together into one sport. There were tons of fights in which the referee had to pretend to enforce MMA rules on the wrestlers.
 
I think a lot of guys would have tapped to Bill Goldberg once in suplex position rather than be obliterated
goldberg-jackhammer.gif

See, plenty of time to tap
 
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