WWE goes head to head with UFC 128

WWE is pulling no punches against the UFC, despite normally pulling them in their pro wrestling matches.

Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment has scheduled a live pro wrestling event on the same night as the UFC makes it return to New Jersey. WWE presents Raw Road to WrestleMania, which will be at Madison Square Garden starting at 7:30 p.m. UFC 128, which is in the Prudential Center in New Jersey, will begin opening the doors and having preliminary fights around that time as well. It is no secret that the UFC has been clobbering WWE in terms of pay-per-view buyrates, but that might not matter on March 19.

With pro wrestling okay to have in NYC and MMA not, and a good number of crossover appeal between the two sports, the WWE can grab a large share of people who simply don’t want to travel to New Jersey to watch UFC 128, which will be headlined by Rashad Evans challenging Mauricio “Shogun” Rua for the UFC Light heavyweight title. For non-New Yorkers, MSG is simply a subway ride away, while the Prudential Center is a subway ride to a PATH train, then a bit of a jog to the arena. At the end of the night, the PATH train turns into a sardine can that words can not describe. Tickets to a WWE house show are also considerably cheaper than a UFC pay-per-view, which is a much bigger factor when it comes to certain fans choosing which show to see.

As for me, I know that I will be doing my best to see the UFC, but I am interested in seeing if this will affect the UFC live-gate at all or if I am just worrying over nothing. I look forward to the day that MMA is finally allowed in NYC, but as long as we have genius politicians like Bob Reilly who likes amateur MMA but not pro MMA, or Ronald Canestrari who claims that no one can make a profit off of the sport, we have a long way to go before we can push out McMahon and put the octagon in “the Mecca of combat sports”.