7 Reasons Why WWE And UFC Are In Competition

1. Both Of Them Target Amateur Wrestlers

The next WWE World Heavyweight Champion might be Brock Lesnar. He got his start in WWE in the early 2000s following a successful amateur wrestling career at the University of Minnesota. If he wanted to try out for the Olympics he probably could have, but instead he wanted to make a career out of WWE. He did that until 2004. A few years later he went to UFC, became a quick learner, won the UFC Heavyweight Title and became the biggest PPV draw in the sport. In 2012, after sensing his UFC career was done, he returned back to WWE. If UFC was bigger 14 years ago maybe Lesnar never would have went to WWE. The same can be said of Kurt Angle a few years earlier. He was an Olympic gold medalist and could have been great at MMA if he tried it. There were rumors for years that Angle might try to go to UFC, but it never materialized. The Undertaker also said he likely would have tried UFC over 20 years ago if it was as big as it is now. There's a current UFC star Daniel Cormier that grew up a huge wrestling fan that thought about going into pro wrestling after a career that saw him compete at the Olympic level, but he went into MMA. In September he'll headline a PPV against Jon Jones. The boom of UFC in the last decade has made it difficult for WWE to attract amateur wrestlers the way they could before. The guys like Lesnar, Angle, Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas and others may never even think of trying WWE because they are more attracted to UFC. It's not just amateur wrestlers either. You can add in football players and other athletes from different sports that might want to pursue wrestling or MMA based on their desire to continue their athletic endeavors. Their competition for talent is never going away whether they want to admit it or not.