7 Reasons Why WWE And UFC Are In Competition

2. They Are (Or At Least Were) Competing For PPV Dollars

UFC President Dana White has called Vince McMahon the king of PPVs meaning he's the guy that really built up the PPV business over the last 30 years thanks to WrestleMania and all of WWE's other events. Now that WWE has been in place since February the game has changed a bit since WWE is off the traditional PPV model, but they did compete with UFC in that area while UFC has grown into a force in the last decade. The PPV buyrate for WrestleMania 26 in 2010 was 885,000 buys, which is a disappointing number for a WrestleMania. Most WrestleManias in the last decade topped 1 million buys. It was a show headlined by Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels in what was Shawn's retirement. The match also featured Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon as one of the main attractions on the undercard. What was notable about that show is that one night earlier on March 27, 2010 there was a UFC 111 PPV event headlined by Georges St. Pierre vs. Dan Hardy and Shane Carwin vs. Frank Mir. The buyrate for that show was 777,000, which is a very solid number for a UFC show. At the time, there was a lot of debate about whether or not UFC's presence hurt WWE. There's no way of proving that it did or didn't, but when you ask a consumer to spend $50 one day and then $50 the next that's an expensive weekend for a lot of people. While the two companies don't consult when it comes to holding major events on the weekend, it's smarter for both of them to not do shows on back to back days just because they are going after the consumer's dollar. A year later, WWE called The Rock and asked him to come in for WrestleMania 27 as well as the two after that. The buyrates for those shows all topped 1 million.