“You’re a disgrace to real
wrestling.”
“You
have no business calling yourself an amateur wrestling fan, being involved in
that crap.”
“Traitor!”
I used to let comments and accusations like
these go in one ear and out the other. The way I saw it (and still see it) I love
both amateur wrestling and professional wrestling and I’ve done more than
enough to prove my passion and love for amateur wrestling over the years. I don’t need to justify my love and involvement
in professional wrestling. Yet, when I
started hearing praise for MMA and UFC fighters out of the same mouths that
bashed professional wrestling and me for being in it, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. If
people felt the need to make the statement, then I guess I feel the need to
question them and why they say what they say.
Thus far I’ve been given five reasons why MMA/UFC is a respectable
profession and why professional wrestling is not. Let’s see how much truth there is to these
statements.
MMA/UFC takes talent and Professional Wrestling does not
No doubt about it,
MMA/UFC takes a tremendous amount of talent.
Many of the competitors know a variety of different skills and
techniques, from a variety of different disciplines including wrestling,
boxing, kick boxing, karate, jiu-jitsu, taekwondo, Kung Fu, and a multitude of
others. Training and mastering these
techniques takes an ample amount of talent and not just anyone can do it. If you are going to be a top MMA or UFC
superstar, you need to be far above average.
It takes an incredible amount of ability.
Guess what? Same goes for professional wrestling. In order to perform at a top level, learn maneuvers,
master timing and other skills, it takes a tremendous amount of talent. Not to mention, few wrestlers will ever
consider themselves Shakespearean but a certain level of theatrical talent is
needed as well. It takes a lot of knowledge, skill and talent
to know how to take someone down and snap their elbow in a MMA fight. It also takes a lot of knowledge, skill and
talent to know how to make it look like you took your opponent down and snapped
his elbow. Think what you will, but
when you convince an audience of millions of people that you are legitimately
hurt and your elbow really looks snapped when it is not, that is the mark of
talent.
VERDICT OF STATEMENT: FALSE
MMA/UFC participants are legitimate athletes and professional wrestlers
are not
MMA/UFC participants often have legitimate backgrounds in a variety of sports and activities. Many were successful in boxing, such as Marcus Davis, Jens Pulver and Art Jimmerson. If I were to list all of those with successful amateur wrestling backgrounds, it'd take you an hour to read all of the names. Just to give you an idea, Ben Askren, Johny Hendricks, Josh Kosheck, Mark Munoz, Phil Davis and Jake Rosholt were all Division I NCAA champions. It's actually harder to think of successful MMA/UFC fighters who do not have wrestling backgrounds than it is to think of those who do. No doubt about it, MMA/UFC participants are legitimate athletes with legitimate athletic backgrounds.
Guess what?
So are many professional wrestlers. Want to talk football? How about Big E Langston, the Rock, Bo Dallas, Darren Young, JBL and Titus O'Neil who all have collegiate football backgrounds? Roman Reigns played professional football. Basketball players are represented as well with The Big Show, and The Undertaker having both played college hoops. Baseball even gets a mention with Ryback who played in college. Want to talk about professional wrestling superstars with legitimate amateur wrestling backgrounds? How about Brock Lesnar, Dolph Ziggler or Jack Swagger? All were Division I wrestlers. Not enough? Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas were also successful wrestlers in high school. Still not enough? Kurt Angle? Bobby Lashley? If you need more names, I can provide them. The fact of the matter is, MMA/UFC fighters are legitimate athletes and so are a majority of professional wrestlers.
VERDICT OF STATEMENT: FALSE
Professional Wrestling is full of profanity, trash talking, sexual and perverted information and other inappropriate things and MMA/UFC is not.
Professional wrestling has most certainly had its fair share of trash talking, profanity, sexual, perverted and raunchy material. During the WWE Attitude Era, it was little else. However, MMA/UFC have certainly been no strangers to the profanity and trash talking. Matter of fact, if you want to get to the logistics of it, the trash talking in professional wrestling is usually 9/10 times simply a work. Two guys playing characters, who work out a promo to help draw money. When pro wrestler A tells pro wrestler B he hates him and is gonna kick his butt, it's all part of an angle to draw in an audience. The two will laugh over a few beers later on that night. In MMA/UFC, fighter A calls fighter B a piece of trash, who he hopes contracts terminal cancer, he means every word of it.
Is that to say that most MMA/UFC fighters are like that? No, of course it isn't. The majority of them are high class individuals who routinely show phenomenal sportsmanship. A lot of them are role models that your kids can look up to and admire. Some of them aren't though. Some of them are outright jerks. Professional wrestling is no different. You want a list of guys who are genuine, sincere individuals who are honest heroes for your kids to look up to? Pro wrestling has plenty of them. You want guys that absolute pieces of garbage? Pro wrestling has them too.
The point is, on this factor MMA/UFC and Professional wrestling match up damn near nose to nose.
VERDICT OF STATEMENT: FALSE
MMA/UFC Fans are respectable, sophisticated and intelligent people, whereas professional wrestling fans are a bunch of morons and idiots.
It baffles my mind to think that I even need to bring this up, but it has been brought to my attention. Well, I certainly can't deny that there are fans of professional wrestling who are morons and idiots. I know there are. I was around many of them. I'm still around some of them from time to time. The obese, overweight high school dropout, who lives in his mother's basement playing video games all day, pro rasslin' fan does exist. I know, I've met him. I've met a lot of him's. However, some of those guys are watching MMA/UFC too. I know very intelligent people, people with bachelor's, master's and even doctorate degrees who are professional wrestling fans. I know some who are MMA/UFC fans too. The fact of the matter is, both MMA/UFC and professional wrestling are extremely popular and when you are extremely popular you are going to have fans from all walks of life. No one is excluded.
VERDICT OF STATEMENT: FALSE
MMA/UFC is a legitimate athletic contest between two people who are honestly trying to beat one another and professional wrestling is a work.
Ok, you got me here. If this is your reasoning for loving MMA/UFC and hating Professional wrestling, then unlike the other reasons, this one is justified. This one has merit. When two UFC/MMA fighters go head to head, they are legitimately trying to beat each other's brains in, knock each other out or make each other submit. When two professional wrestlers go head to head (unless it's a rare time when they really do go at it for real) it is a rehearsed or improvisational performance. I find it absolutely astounding that it offends people the way it does and that they have the audacity to call it a "disgrace" to amateur wrestling but it is beyond comprehension that they could say that while at the same time calling MMA/UFC a "God-send" to amateur wrestling. Nevertheless, if one's reasoning for why MMA/UFC is awesome for an amateur wrestler to do or be a fan of and why Professional wrestling is disgraceful for an amateur wrestler to do or be a fan of, is because of this reason....then I have to at least say that it has some merit.
VERDICT OF STATEMENT: TRUE
So there you have it. Five reasons I often hear from amateur wrestling fans of why they are MMA/UFC fans, supporters or in the least tolerant and why they are not of professional wrestling. Amazingly enough, only 1/5 has any legitimacy whatsoever. The other four are absolute balderdash and extraordinarily hypocritical. They are outright lies.
In the end I really don't care whether someone is an MMA/UFC fan or not. I really don't care if someone is a professional wrestling fan or not. I do however care when guys like Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger are referred to as, "sell outs" or "traitors" while guys like Ben Askren and Rashad Evans are put on a pedestal. I want Askren and Evans on a pedestal. They deserve to be there, but so do Ziggler and Swagger and it's about time that we as a community acknowledged that.
MMA/UFC and professional wrestling are very similar in many, many ways and slightly different only in a few ways. Fan of both, fan of one but not the other, fan of neither...doesn't matter. The guys who were former amateur wrestlers who participate in them deserve our respect and admiration, if they are good guys. The only reason why we should ever be saying anything negative about them or what they do, is if and only if what they are doing is truly disgraceful. Call a guy like Rob Rebmann who's been in and out of jail multiple times disgraceful. Call a guy like David Tyner, who murdered two pregnant women in a mafia hit disgraceful. Those guys are disgraceful. Former amateur wrestlers who are in professional wrestling are not.
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