9 Ways WWE Owes A Debt To UFC
These days a work has to pretend to be a shoot in order to work.
Regardless of what your Vince McMahons, your John Cenas and your Triple Hs have to say on the subject, the rise of mixed martial arts as a credible sporting spectacle in the last twenty years or so has had a profound effect on professional wrestling.
That’s not to say that professional mixed martial arts haven’t stolen liberally from pro wrestling, just like boxing did back in the day. The fighters that make the most money tend to be the ones with catchy nicknames and catchier catchphrases, good hype artists who can trash talk at a press conference and start a believable ruck at a weigh-in.
Every time I see a Conor McGregor or a Chael Sonnen mouthing off and getting everybody talking, I see the shadowy outlines of CM Punk, ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper and The Rock standing behind them like dead g*ddamn Jedi.
But to say that it’s a one way street is ridiculous and patently false.
In 2016, pro wrestling in general and the WWE in particular owes more than a little to mixed martial arts and the UFC. Here’s a few examples of how that debt has expressed itself onscreen and in the ring.
9. The Clothes Make The Man
Before MMA, and UFC in particular, the in-ring gear for pro wrestlers followed one of two patterns. It was either the usual variations on tights and trunks (the kind of gear that wrestlers have worn since the year dot) or it was a variation on the kind of clothes that people wore in real life, customised for the ring - suits, jeans, uniforms, you know the kind of thing.
The look of a character is key in establishing certain basic assumptions about them, and when elements of legitimate fighting gear are used in a professional wrestler’s attire, you can bet it’s because they want the crowd to make those associations with legitimate competition.
In moving towards that appearance of legitimacy, plenty wrestlers now ape the functional and stylistic conventions of mixed martial arts in their gear.
Rusev went barefoot for some time (representing the character’s supposed Muay Thai roots), Brock Lesnar still dresses for the Octagon, and Kevin Owens, the so-called prizefighter, also wears baggier boxing/MMA style shorts.
Wrestlers have been taping their wrists for additional support for a long time now, but relatively recently there’s been a spate of performers who - like CM Punk - taped their wrists and fists for both support and grip, and also for the appearance of legitimate toughness.
The idea is that, just as with boxers, the taped fist/wrist protects the hand from injuries that might be sustained while punching someone a whole hell of a lot.
Similarly, The Undertaker first began wearing MMA gloves at the end of 2001 to help denote the transition between his American Badass babyface character and the bullying heel Big Evil character.
Since then, plenty of others have followed suit: the gloves are designed to protect the hands while punching yet still allow grappling.