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The UFC promotion has booked their UFC 111 PPV fight card for the night before WrestleMania 26 in an apparent attempt to take away a portion of WWE's audience for the wrestling promotion's biggest event of the year.
UFC 111 will take place on Saturday, March 27 featuring one of UFC's top stars, Georges St. Pierre, in a championship title defense. WrestleMania 26 then takes place the following night.
WWE has downplayed UFC's effect on their business in past conference calls and corporate presentations. WWE says they don't believe there is much cross-over between their PPV audience and UFC's.
WWE has cited data from cable companies that indicates there is a 4.0 percent cross-over of customers who order both UFC and wrestling PPVs. As a result, they most-likely won't show concern publicly about UFC's fight card.
UFC has also booked a live fight card on Monday, January 11 to go head-to-head with WWE Raw one week after TNA Impact goes head-to-head with Raw on Jan. 4.
With UFC booking one of their top stars in a marquee PPV fight one night before WrestleMania to go along with the Monday night fight card on cable TV, it will give WWE more incentive to deliver a strong line-up of shows in the first three months of 2010.
[Georges St. Pierre art credit Cory Gould (c) MMATorch]
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