Pride in talks with WWE for partnership

[KingPK 0]

From today's WO.com update:

 

--The biggest news of the day is that officials from the Pride Fighting Championships are meeting with officials from WWE about a business relationship. I've been aware of interest from both sides for about a month, at least from the time the WWE/Bob Sapp negotiations started. Part of the Sapp proposal involved the sides working together in promoting Sapp as both a pro wrestling superstar and MMA superstar. However, Sapp was planned by WWE to start on 10/29, and that day has come and gone and he hasn't signed a contract due to all the expected problems and his planned storyline was given to someone else. Regarding certain speculations:

 

*There is no way there will be a joint show in the U.S. of Pride fights and WWE matches on the same bill. No athletic commission will allow it, and neither side would probably want it because the mix doesn't work. It didn't work in Japan, and it will not work even more in the U.S.

 

*For Pride to work with WWE, due to the credibility issue, shows desperation on their part, which has been evident since losing television and trying to target the more difficult to crack U.S. market.

 

*The only viable things that can come out of this are:

 

A) WWE gets an ownership interest in Pride, and then gets them a time slot on the USA Network, perhaps at 11 p.m. on Mondays, since that was the time slot that put UFC on the map in the first place. Keep in mind of the brass in WWE, virtually all are completely clueless about MMA. Shane McMahon is a fan but his knowledge of MMA is very limited. Paul Heyman has a strong business level knowledge since he had looked into starting an MMA promotion at one point. After that, aside from a few lower level people who are big fans, you've got nothing. Vince McMahon understood more about bodybuilding, and as much if not more about football, as he knows about MMA (which is nothing whatsoever). However, if he's got an ownership interest, he'll call the shots. And he has big-time level experience in making characters and producing television that nobody has. But when he tried that in bodybuilding, his characters were so cartoonish that it was a disaster. His "character making" is not the kind of character making that has worked in the past in a real sport situation.

 

B) The two sides agree to cross promote someone with the idea of giving a guy a few wins in Pride making him "more legit" for pro wrestling and pro wrestling making him famous for Pride so he can draw on PPV--basically the idea every MMA promotion in the world was looking at as to why Kurt Angle was in such huge demand. But that's a big risk. Whenever WWE has messed with reality--whether it be Brawl for All--letting outside entities do documentaries on the real world of WWE, or even the 2004 Tough Enough, it has wound up from a company standpoint in disaster every time out. I can't imagine this happening, but who could have imagined Brawl for All until it happened? And Vince McMahon isn't always very good when it comes to learning lessons from mistakes.

 

The point is, they can fix matches in Japan because there is no commission, but they can't in the U.S. because it's simply not worth risking the penalties. McMahon's company is publicly traded and fixing fights would risk a billion dollar company for relatively little upside. Also, with the exception of Bobby Lashley, there is nobody in WWE today that could be cross-promoted, and even in safe fights, there are never any guarantees without fixing things. WWE never had interest in Kevin Randleman when he was younger, and his Pride career is on the downswing. Phil Baroni has a pro wrestler personality but would have to learn from scratch. There is no way to predict how he would do in-ring. Randleman with proper training has an athletic base to be incredible in the ring.

 

C) What they have in common is this. UFC. People are very tight-lipped about what this is about, other than these are two organizations with one common enemy and common goal, which is keeping UFC from getting any stronger than it already is. Pride can't compete with UFC in the U.S. without television. We've heard nothing about the October buy rate, and if it was good, we'd have probably heard. WWE is losing to UFC on PPV in the U.S., sometimes by a four-to-one or five-to-one basis in the U.S. That wouldn't be such a big deal, except it is often brought up in the media, and that's a perception that causes WWE doesn't like of them being portrayed the old business from the past being surpassed by the new business. You could really tell with the reaction when that was printed in Newsweek.

 

This could easily go nowhere. It's hard enough dealing with WWE in business if you are dealing from strength. Pride is dealing from weakness, and thus, WWE pretty much can name their demands. They don't have any need to do business with Pride.

 

Pride might as well just fold if they are THIS desperate for money/exposure. Any WWE fan that has any interest in MMA has probably been lured away by the UFC at this point.

 

Where online can I find that Newsweek article that was referenced at the end?

Edited November 18, 2006 by KingPK