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Post by srossi on Nov 6, 2023 19:12:07 GMT
The crossover of wrestling fans to MMA was pretty big in the period roughly from 2005 to 2015. The WWE was up and down in quality. It had no competition within pro wrestling due to WCW dying. Even at its strongest, TNA/Impact wasn’t competition. The scene in Japan was down. All Japan ceased to be a major league group as did NOAH while New Japan had some rough times. Meanwhile UFC had colorful fighters, good action, and somehow created stars and compelling matchups in a legit sport better than worked pro wrestling groups that can control who wins and how. MMA filled a void for fans and for Meltzer. He was right to take that path and is right to stay on it. Pro wrestling made a big comeback, but all booms are followed by downturns. When it happens, he has additional content with an audience instead of having to start from scratch. I think it's as simple as Meltzer likes shoot-fighting. He was covering it in the Observer from before the UFC started. I don't see it as some savvy business move to plug a gap in his sales. He was writing MMA features for Yahoo and other outlets for a while (maybe still is), and I see him quoted as an MMA analyst in legit sports publications sometimes. Not as much these days as a few years back before the market got saturated with bloggers posing as journalists, like the Barstool types. I don't know if any non-wrestling fan ever subscribed to the Observer for his MMA coverage, but maybe. He was presented as an authority.
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Post by tamalie on Nov 6, 2023 19:13:30 GMT
Some of it is Dave Meltzer loves MMA. A lot of it is MMA as we know it was partly born from pro wrestling in Japan with a line from the two UWFs to groups like UWFI, RINGS, and Pancrase using a worked shoot style that was innovative for the time to the latter moving to legit matches to the rise of PRIDE FC.
A lot of fans of Japanese pro wrestling made the journey to MMA as that scene evolved. It was a natural tie in for The Observer. The likes of the Gracie family, the Shamrocks, Don Frye, and Dan Severn bridged the Japanese MMA world to UFC in the early days. New Japan, in a largely self destructive move, sent many of its wrestlers into MMA fights.
The pro wrestling tie in to MMA is largely lost now but the fan crossover remains significant. That doesn’t mean an Observer devoted solely to MMA would or that it has many subscribers who read it only for MMA. However, it remains a logical and sound direction for Meltzer to have taken.
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Post by srossi on Nov 6, 2023 19:18:56 GMT
Some of it is Dave Meltzer loves MMA. A lot of it is MMA as we know it was partly born from pro wrestling in Japan with a line from the two UWFs to groups like UWFI, RINGS, and Pancrase using a worked shoot style that was innovative for the time to the latter moving to legit matches to the rise of PRIDE FC. A lot of fans of Japanese pro wrestling made the journey to MMA as that scene evolved. It was a natural tie in for The Observer. The likes of the Gracie family, the Shamrocks, Don Frye, and Dan Severn bridged the Japanese MMA world to UFC in the early days. New Japan, in a largely self destructive move, sent many of its wrestlers into MMA fights. The pro wrestling tie in to MMA is largely lost now but the fan crossover remains significant. That doesn’t mean an Observer devoted solely to MMA would or that it has many subscribers who read it only for MMA. However, it remains a logical and sound direction for Meltzer to have taken. Not to mention that NJPW went all-in on MMA cross-overs in the mid-2000s, to the point that it almost destroyed the company and ceased being a pro wrestling organization. It would’ve been impossible to cover the Japan scene without covering MMA.
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