The UFC has a lot of steps to take before they can become a mainstream national success (like running major events in New York City or not letting them employees call journalists c*nts), and who better to explain how and why than a 42-year old pro wrestler currently embroiled in an onscreen dispute about who did and didn’t lie to him about sending a text?
In an interview with AOL Moviefone, multiple-time WWE Champion and current on-screen C.O.O. Triple H responded to a question asking him if WWE should evolve as Ultimate Fighting and mixed-martial arts grow in popularity in a way … well, in a way you’d probably expect:
I don’t think we have to evolve. It’s two totally different things. I think now especially there’s this thing like, “oh it’s very similar.” I don’t see us needing to evolve to what UFC does because quite frankly sometimes the fights are long and boring, guys lying around and sometimes the fights are fast and over in five seconds. I’ve always thought one of the things about us, if you look at us solely from a sports standpoint, is that we always give you a good show. We’re never going to give you a crap game.
I love pro wrestling more than most members of my family and have been watching it for thirty years and even I know that’s not true.
I think if anybody needs to evolve, it’s them.
Give more of an entertainment standpoint. Give more form; they just have fighters who walk in in T-shirts and shorts and just stand there and then they fight and then they win and then they go “thanks, I’d like to thank my sponsors” and then they leave. The whole world was up in arms when Brock was flipping people off and was cussing at the beer company because they didn’t give him any money and everyone thought, “oh my god, he’s disrespectful,” — the whole world was talking about it. They couldn’t wait to see him get beat up. And then he did well, and he beat some guys and then people jump on his bandwagon going “Brock’s the greatest.” I’m good friends with Floyd Mayweather and Floyd would be the first to tell ya, “I make the most money in boxing and I have the biggest buyers because I have the biggest mouth.” He’d be the first guy to tell you that. That’s what it’s about. Sports is entertainment.
Some of those points are true — like UFC fights having the capacity to be long and boring or too-quick and unfulfilling, two facts that made people decide to predetermine organized fights in the first place — but man, is there a worse place or way to say this? A Moviefone interview about your Michael Rappaport more-or-less-direct-to-DVD action movie isn’t a great place to explain how nobody else knows what they’re doing. A lot of WWE right now is just what H described: people who walk in in T-shirts and shorts and just stand there and then they wrestle somebody and they win and then go “thanks, I’d like to thank the WWE Universe” or the opposite and then they leave. And hell, Brock was even there.
If you think I’m the only wrestling fan that doesn’t dig UFC who won’t back Triple H up, you don’t have to look very hard — CM Punk, the man Triple H is facing in a match at this Sunday’s WWE Night of Champions pay-per-view, shared his thoughts on the discussion via Twitter:
