10 Times Wrestling And MMA Were A Bad Mix

Ultimate fighting and pre-determined fighting make strange bedfellows.

Butterbean, Bart Gunn, Brawl For All
WWE.com

Professional wrestling is built off pre-determined fights. However, it’s a completely unique art form that doesn’t resemble reality very much. In an actual MMA fight, the competitors are often on top of each other, battling for dominance by using a variety of holds and counter holds to gain the advantage. In wrestling, they use bodyslams and suplexes to inflict punishment.

Still, a dose of reality now and then in the squared circle isn’t a bad thing. Ken Shamrock, Kurt Angle, and Brock Lesnar have all been influenced by the world of MMA, and brought their training from that field over to their worked matches. With the right person, that style can make the matches more exciting. With the wrong person, for example, someone who used to play the role of Papa Shango, it looks quite ridiculous.

UFC, and MMA as a whole, have exploded in popularity over the years. Because of this, wrestling promoters keep trying to take aspects from the legitimate sport and implement it into their shows. The results are very mixed to say the least.

Here are 10 times that the two forms of entertainment should have stayed far away from each other.

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Contributor

As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at." Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week. Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com