The Piledriver Report 01.03.07: Ultimate Fighting Championship: The Real Alternative to the WWE

Over the last month and a half, the wrestling industry has flooded the television airwaves with several pay per view events. TNA Wrestling presented two shows that each featured Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe as their main events. The WWE brought us the Cyber Sunday, Survivor Series, ECW: December 2 Dismember, and Armageddon. New Year’s Revolution and the Royal Rumble will shortly follow these shows later this month. It seems like the pay per view market has become oversaturated with professional wrestling pay per view events.

The flooding of wrestling telecasts on pay per view wouldn’t be too bad IF the shows were good. However, these programs aren’t worth the $30-40 asking price. Out of the last six professional wrestling events on pay per view television, only the latest TNA pay per view can be considered a really good show.

That leaves five pay per view events that left the consumer disappointed in the product. I don’t want to spend $220.00 in pay per view shows, and only feel like I was entertained by one $30.00 broadcast. After each pay per view, I read the reviews of each show on several wrestling websites. After every broadcast, I read too many reviews that give the shows a “thumbs in the middle” or a “thumbs down.” While you can’t please all of the people all of the time, it seems that when you are charging $30-40 for each monthly show, the majority of the reviews that are presented should be in the “thumbs up” range.

As frustrating as this trend of mediocre to bad shows has become, I think I may have discovered an alternative. During the New Year’s weekend, I decided to order UFC 66: Ortiz vs. Liddell 2. Before this event, I wouldn’t have classified myself as an MMA fan. It was the exact opposite. Mixed Martial Arts kind of bores me. Before the MMA fans jump down my throat, let me explain. Before last Saturday night, my only previous exposure into the world of mixed martial arts was over ten years ago. I was in college at the time, and was the team manager for my university’s football team as part of a work study program. One of the requirements of the job was for me to travel with the team. During the bus trips to the other schools, the coaches would play a movie to help inspire or psyche up the team. Movies like “Hoosiers” or videos from NFL Films that showed bone-jarring hits were routinely played on these rides. On one occasion, the coaches put in a tape of a UFC tournament.

The first thing I noticed was that the bouts were really short. I grew up on professional wrestling and boxing, whose matches lasted around twenty minutes or several rounds. Unless you were watching a Saturday morning squash match or a Mike Tyson fight, chances are you would get your money’s worth. On this particular UFC show, the bouts were over in less than five minutes. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to spend money on a show when the odds are that the main event would last only a few minutes. I realize that a real fight only lasts a few minutes, but I just could comprehend at the time why someone would rather spend money to watch a three-minute fight instead of a twenty-minute “wrestling” classic.

After sitting through the tournament, the finals between Dan Severn and Royce Gracie aired. Finally, there was a match that lasted almost twenty minutes. The only problem was that Severn had Gracie locked in some kind of hold for about sixteen straight minutes! Boring. Then, within a split second, Gracie turned a bit, and all of a sudden Severn tapped out. I couldn’t understand it. How could Severn tap out when he was in control of the whole match? I felt cheated. The wrestling fan in me kept thinking “this doesn’t happen in my sport.” Looking back, it’s kind of funny when you realize that I was comparing the foreign (to me) world of mixed martial arts to my world of “choreographed” professional wrestling. The two couldn’t be more polar opposites.

Ultimate Fighting is a violent, hard-hitting sport. Two combatants pounding each other inside an octagon shaped steel structure. Some would classify it as being barbaric. Professional wrestling is more like a dance. Two men inside of a square circle, one leading the other in an athletic ballet where each move tells a story between the two men in the ring.

For the next decade, I pretty much ignore the UFC and other Mixed Martial Arts promotions. However, that started to change this past year. In 2005, the UFC presented a reality show on Spike-TV called “The Ultimate Fighter.” This show worked much the same way as the WWE’s “Tough Enough” series. UFC was looking to find new fighters, and this was a way for them to find new talent. “The Ultimate Fighter” drew impressive ratings, and UFC garnered attention that they never before received from the general public.

In 2006, this newfound exposure led to increased buy rates for their monthly pay per views. I was starting to take notice. Every so often, I would watch parts of the UFC specials when they would air on Spike. Not too much, but a little here and there. The “Wrestling Observer” started covering the sport with even greater detail than it had before. I would skim through the articles to see what was going on in the MMA world. I might not have been able to pick out Chuck Liddell or Tito Ortiz in a line-up, but I was learning who they were.

Over the last few months, it seemed like whenever I would read letters written to the “Wrestling Observer” website, there would be a bunch of letters talking about the great job UFC was doing in creating new stars. They all read pretty much the same. Dana White is becoming the new Vince McMahon, and UFC is drawing huge interest and creating storylines without having a “creative team” writing “angles.” Each article talked about the fighters in UFC, and the contestants on “The Ultimate Fighter” in particular, delivering better promos then 90% of the roster in World Wrestling Entertainment.

A couple of weeks ago, I turned on Spike-TV, and was watching UFC’s build-up for last Saturday’s Ortiz-Liddell fight. I was immediately hooked. For a guy who wasn’t a fan of UFC, I was getting excited to see the fight. UFC did an incredible job with the promotional hype for this fight. They really made the upcoming bout feel like a super fight, like Ali-Frazier or even Hogan-Andre. I already had my preconceived notions regarding UFC due to my past experience watching the mixed martial arts promotion. However, I decided to give them one shot. I almost ordered the Ortiz-Shamrock fight in the summer. I kind of figured that Ken Shamrock was going to get killed, so I didn’t order it. From what I read, it was a squash. I was glad that I saved my money, as my opinion of UFC from a decade ago seemed to hold true from what a read regarding that fight. However, something told me that this show would be different.

I decided to order UFC 66: Ortiz vs. Liddell 2. Man, am I glad that I did. What a show! Sure, most fights were short bouts. However, unlike a decade prior, I didn’t watch this show with my “pro wrestling bias.” Maybe it’s because I have been extremely down on the wrestling industry lately (minus some TNA and most of Ring of Honor). This time, I wasn’t thinking like a pro wrestling fan. Instead, I was viewing the show as a brutal, vicious sporting event.

I was very surprised at the event. From reading the “Observer” and hearing people talk about UFC, I was really excited to see that Andrei Arlovski was on the card. His fight against Marcio Cruz was short. Unlike a decade ago when I was mad due to the short bouts, I was very into this abbreviated match. Both men were lying on the mat trying to apply ankle locks to one another when Arlovski kicked Cruz in the head. After the referee was done admonishing Andrei for the kick, Arlovski punched Marcio square in the face. He then trapped Cruz in the fetal position between himself and the cage walls. Once Cruz was in this position, Andrei repeatedly struck Cruz with blows to the head until the referee stopped the match.

Later in the evening, Forrest Griffin fought Keith Jardine. As I said before, I’m not a die-hard MMA fan. I can’t tell you the names of the holds. I can’t tell you certain fighters’ strengths and weakness. However, one thing I do know is the name Forrest Griffin. I know he is one of the best, so I was really looking forward to seeing him go at it. I was shocked, as it seemed was the live crowd, when Keith Jardine scored a TKO on Griffin. It was another short fight, but it was filled with action as both men were throwing lefts and rights at one another. Jardine just happen to connect, and connect, and connect until the referee stopped the bout.

During the show, they announced that Mirko “Cro Crop” Filipovic, formerly of PRIDE, had signed on to fight for UFC. Mirko Cro Crop is a name I know all to well, thanks to Dave Meltzer’s newsletter. Since I don’t know much about him, I looked up his name on Wikipedia. I found out that he delivers a kick to his opponent’s head to knock his foe out. They have a picture of the kick on the wikipedia website. It looks devastating. I can’t wait to see him fight in February.

Usually, when a boxing match is hyped, the bout fails to live up to the promotion that went into the battle. I can honestly say that Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell 2 definitely lived up to the hype. It appeared that the fight would be a short one, as Liddell had Ortiz in trouble in Round One. Surprisingly, the referee did not stop the fight, and Ortiz managed to survive the round. Tito Ortiz made a comeback in Round Two, and even took Liddell down to the mat. The match ended in Round Three when Liddell finally forced the referee to stop the bout after several strikes to Tito’s head.

A decade ago, I found nothing appealing with the mixed martial arts sports genre. Today, I have a newfound respect and appreciation for the sport. It was money well spent. This was one of the few times in the past year that when I was done watching a pay per view, I really felt like I got my money’s worth. This Sunday is the WWE’s New Year’s Revolution pay per view. Umaga vs. John Cena headlines the card in a match for the WWE World title. Usually, I would be purchasing the first WWE pay per view of the year. However, after just watching UFC 66, any WWE pay per view would fail in comparison. I order most WWE pay per views. However, if the UFC is going to entertain me like it did this past Saturday, I may have to alter my pay per view buying habits. Vince McMahon doesn’t believe that UFC is his competition. He believes his competition is based more in the field of entertainment, and not against other sports or wrestling promotions. I have news for Vince. Forget about Hollywood, or even the fans’ delusions about TNA rising above to become the WWE’s competition. If more people, like myself, decide to choose UFC’s pay per views over Vince’s WWE shows, he will have to take note. Dana White vs. Vince McMahon. UFC vs. WWE. Reality vs. Choreography and Storylines. Let the games begin. I’m ready to play.