FACEBOOK TWITTER RSS APP PODCAST Opinion & Analysis : Keller's Take KELLER: UFC's aggression against Strikeforce not unprecedented in cable and PPV game

Aug 15, 2009 - 11:33:46 AM

UFC may be going after Strikeforce with aggressive counter-programming, but it's hardly an original tactic. Pro wrestling promoters, from whom Dana White has admittedly studied and learned a lot (both what to do and not to do), have a long track record of similar predatory business practices.

1987

In 1987, the no. 2 promoter in the United States, Jim Crockett Jr., who promoted under the NWA name (later to become WCW), was about to enter the pay-per-view market by offering Starrcade '87, the original annual pro wrestling supershow, nationally. Vince McMahon Jr. of the WWF earlier in the year had great success promoting WrestleMania III, selling out the Pontiac Silverdome for the Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant and Randy "Macho Man" Savage vs. Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat headlined card.

McMahon knew the type of revenue that his competitor could gain from PPV and didn't want him to gain a foothold, so he counter-programmed with a pay-per-view of his own, the "Survivor Series." Cable companies at the time only had the capability of carrying one PPV at a time. Although many had agreed to carry NWA Starrcade, McMahon told cable companies Survivor Series and WrestleMania IV were a package deal; carry Survivor Series or else get blocked from carrying WrestleMania IV next spring. Cable companies knew that the WWF was a proven commodity and didn't want to lose the revenue of WrestleMania IV, and virtually all went with the WWF.

1988

Vince McMahon didn't stop there, though. To add insult to injury, he created the "Royal Rumble" event and offered it free on USA Network to counter Crockett's next PPV venture, the "Bunkhouse Stampede" in 1989. Starrcade and the Bunkhouse Stampede were relative financial flops so Crockett, financially ruined, sold the NWA promotion to Ted Turner in November of 1988.

Before selling out, though, Crockett got a measure of revenge. He created the "Clash of the Champions" event and put one of his most attractive matches - champion "Nature Boy" Ric Flair against the charismatic rising star Sting - on top of the card, and offered it live and free on TBS opposite of WrestleMania IV. WrestleMania IV fell well short of expectations and was considered the inferior wrestling show. It launched the career of Sting, although he'd end up falling well short of Hulk Hogan as a PPV draw in coming years.

1995

WCW would get its revenge seven years later when Monday Nitro was launched as a weekly live one-hour wrestling series that went head-to-head with the WWF's main cable show, Monday Night Raw. Raw was live only once every three weeks and had a stodgy format holding back top stars and compelling match-ups in order to save them for PPVs and arena events. WCW, backed by Turner's dollars, offered the best matches they could on a weekly basis regardless of how it affected their PPV buys or limited arena shows.

McMahon, ironically, cried out that Turner was engaging in unfair predatory practices, even though he used similar tactics in the late 1980s. His main bone of contention was that Nitro could have been scheduled any night of the week, but it was clearly positioned to put him out of business. McMahon's best argument was that when he went to war with Crockett, it was wrestling revenue put against wrestling revenue and may the best promoter win. With WCW Nitro, it was Turner using profits from other aspects of their business to subsidize the wrestling product, which wasn't being run to turn a profit but rather draw as many viewers away from Raw without regard for the bottom line.

Those revenues were also used to acquire WWF talent, beginning with the jump of Lex Luger on the very first Nitro in a move that McMahon learned about by watching Nitro. Other followed, most famously Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, who had wrestled for the WWF as Razor Ramon and Diesel. It seems every few weeks another big name from the WWF was signed away by WCW and debuted on Nitro, drawing WWF fans to WCW in the process. From the onset Nitro was competitive in the ratings, which surprised most followers of the industry since WCW had been hapless for years. Soon Nitro took over and dominated the ratings for over 80 weeks.

McMahon ultimately got the last laugh, as Nitro was cancelled in 2001, not because of poor ratings (although it was far behind a resurgent Raw at that point), but because WCW's early spending habits never subsided and the company never learned to respect the bottom line. They lost over 80 million dollars their last year in business. Time-Warner, which had acquired Turner, decided to pull the plug on Nitro and dismantle WCW and sell it as scrap to McMahon himself. TNT wanted higher brow programming than WCW and actually replaced Nitro with lower rated dramas that, it argued, drew better advertisers that fit with the image of the network.

WWE vs. UFC

UFC used the counter-programming tactic once against WWE. It booked Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock, their third fight titled "The Final Chapter," on Spike TV on Oct. 10, 2006. It happened to be on a Monday night, head-to-head with WWE Raw, not long after WWE had abandoned Spike TV to return to its original home, USA Network. UFC drew a strong 3.1 rating that night, with a peak of 4.3 for the Shamrock vs. Ortiz fight. It was a higher peak rating than WWE Raw drew that night, and overall competitive with the cable ratings juggernaut that Raw was.

TODAY

WWE (formerly the WWF) now faces competition from TNA Wrestling, but they have yet to have a true clash like those in 1998-'98 and 1995-2001. TNA's founding family, the Jarretts, from the outset said their goal included the possibility of reigniting a Monday Night War with head-to-head programming. They have not reached the popularity necessary to take that step, though, despite acquiring some well-known WWE acts such as Kurt Angle, Mick Foley, Booker T, Kevin Nash, X-Pac, Christian Cage, Jeff Hardy, and The Dudley Boyz. (Christian and Hardy have since returned to WWE.)

Meanwhile, UFC has surpassed WWE in pay-per-view business with its monthly events routinely outdrawing WWE by large margins (including its showcase event UFC 100 nearly doubling the buys of WrestleMania 25 this year), but WWE continues to produce more hours of highly rated cable TV each week than UFC. The Ultimate Fighter series on Spike TV draws UFC's best ratings, other than occasional Fight Night specials, but its ratings are more in line with TNA Wrestling, which are one-third of what WWE's Raw draws weekly on USA.

What UFC and Dana White are doing tonight, counter-programming a free Spike TV special up against Strikeforce's live event on Showtime, is hardly unprecedented. It's also a tactic that has been effective within the pro wrestling industry before and similar to what UFC has done before up against various competition's attempts to gain a foothold in the expanding MMA marketplace.

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