Dana White and Vince McMahon are without doubt two of the most successful promoters of all time.
Both men took their respective companies – UFC and WWE – and helped them to become pay-per-view juggernauts, while fighting off competition from rivals at the same time, Vince famously fending off WCW and Eric Bischoff, while Dana at one stage had a mock tombstone made up with the names of all the competitors he’d managed to bury (or sometimes, they buried themselves, but I digress...).
Some of the tactics they use are similar – a goal to have no wrestler or fighter become bigger than the company, a willingness to forget about grudges if there’s the possibility of making money – but naturally with one working inside MMA and the other in pro-wrestling, there’s a tonne of differences too.
So what would happen if they switched roles?
Uncle Dana suddenly heading up WWE while Vinny Mac ran the UFC?
You can bet your life that there’d be some changes, some good, some bad. Here are five I could imagine happening in this odd, but definitely intriguing scenario.
#1 No more USADA testing in the UFC
Okay, so everyone knows that after the deaths of Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit, WWE introduced a ‘Wellness Policy’ supposedly designed to crack down on the abuse of PEDs, painkillers, and recreational drugs amongst the talent.
But does anyone really buy into it as being legit? I certainly don’t.
Sure, when the policy first kicked in we saw the likes of Chris Masters suddenly shrink in muscle mass, and admittedly, the overall size of top-level WWE talent these days is either much smaller or less chiselled than before, but this is still a company that features the likes of John Cena, HHH, and even newer stars like Neville and Apollo Crews sporting insane physiques that would turn heads in any other drug-tested sport.
UFC, meanwhile, has suffered from a PED issue of its own and after legendary former champion Anderson Silva popped for a myriad of steroids in January 2015, the company decided to bring in USADA to really amp up their drug testing programme.
The result has been pretty dramatic, with a number of notable fighters – Jon Jones and Brock Lesnar amongst them – being caught out for PED usage, and we’ve also seen a lot of physique changes too.
Would Vince McMahon really want an end to the era of the superhuman physique in the UFC? I don’t think so myself. We’ve all seen countless times in the past how he values muscles over anything else.
Maybe he’d want to maintain the illusion of a drug-tested sport, but I think he’d let USADA testing go by-the-by and go back to the old Zuffa tagline of ‘our fighters are tested by the government’ – as in the state athletic commissions.
After all, superhuman physiques draw more fans in, right?
#2 More build-up to the big matches in WWE
Back in the 80’s and 90’s, it was rare that the then-WWF would ever give its big matches away on free TV. With a maximum of five PPV cards a year by the early 90’s, it was important that the matches between stars had a proper build to them.
Often, the big names wouldn’t have any physical contact at all prior to their first big meeting on PPV.
The WWF’s TV shows were filled with squash matches, Superstars against no-names, and this worked – it was a way to build characters up in the eyes of the fans and make them look great.
These days, though – since the Monday Night Wars of the late 90’s – it’s become commonplace to give big matches away on Raw and Smackdown. This means that by the time a big match is signed for a PPV, the fans have often seen it multiple times under multiple stipulations.
How do you sell a PPV like that? The quick answer is that you don’t.
Dana White meanwhile is a master of building the big fight up. Look at the way Conor McGregor was built up to his fight with Jose Aldo, for instance, after he beat a top contender in Dustin Poirier, he was given Dennis Siver as a showcase opponent.
And you can count on one hand the number of times the UFC signs a big name and immediately drops them into a PPV main event. Usually, they’re given at least one fight on free TV against a lesser name to build them in the eyes of the UFC fans.
Admittedly, this has backfired a couple of times. Mirko Cro Cop, for instance, was given a build-up match too many before a possible fight with Randy Couture and ended up losing all his lustre when Gabriel Gonzaga knocked him out.
Usually, though, it works brilliantly and by the time the big fight comes around in the UFC, everyone and their dog is clamouring to see it.
With no competition from a rival promoter at this point anyway, there’s no reason why WWE couldn’t follow this pattern and build matches using old-school squashes on free TV. I reckon Dana would be all for it if he took over.
#3 UFC’s entrances would change
Prior to UFC 44 in late 2003, the UFC actually used an entrance ramp similar to that of WWE’s, and some of the entrances made use of the big screen and pyrotechnics as well. Tito Ortiz’s entrance at UFC 40, for instance, could’ve come straight out of Wrestlemania.
At UFC 44, though, the decision was made to do away with the ramp and feature the fighters just heading to the cage down an aisle, basically like a boxing match.
I never did hear a legitimate reason for losing the ramp. Maybe Dana wanted the UFC to be more like boxing than pro-wrestling? Or maybe it really did have to do with the odd entrance for Chuck Liddell – featuring Vanilla Ice and the TapouT crew – on the previous PPV, UFC 43.
One thing’s for certain, though. If Vince McMahon took over the UFC, we’d see the return of the entrance ramp instantly. UFC would probably start blowing through pyrotechnics again at a crazy rate, and we’d see a return of the wild entrances like Tito’s at UFC 40.
Would this work? I’m not sure.
We’ve definitely seen a few fighters with elaborate entrances that the ramp would’ve helped – Yoshihiro Akiyama, for instance – and I’m sure fighters with big personalities like Conor McGregor and Cody Garbrandt would make maximum use of it.
The majority of the roster though are more reserved characters, and it might seem odd or just plain awkward to see a fighter with a quieter demeanour – Cain Velasquez or Amanda Nunes – attempt to look badass on the ramp with pyro exploding behind them.
It’s not something I’d personally resurrect but I think Vinny Mac would definitely go for it, especially when you look at some of the absolutely ridiculous entrances we see WWE Superstars make at big shows like Wrestlemania. Maybe it would help to boost the production value of the UFC’s bigger shows. It’d certainly up the spectacle!
#4 Smaller wrestlers being given more respect
Historically, the WWE has always been like the Land of the Giants. Smaller wrestlers have always found it hard to get to the top, and although it has been done – Rey Mysterio and Daniel Bryan come to mind – it’s pretty rare.
Most notably, WWE has never really respected a Cruiserweight division, while they’ve implemented it on numerous occasions including right now, they always allow it to degenerate into the smaller wrestlers against the bigger ones, with bigger always winning.
Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels are often used as an example of smaller wrestlers rising to the top, but here’s a wild fact for you: even if you take a few pounds off their billed weights, both men would at the smallest be considered Light-Heavyweights in MMA!
The idea that anyone under around 180lbs could be the top star in WWE is almost inconceivable, and yet if you look at the UFC, two of their biggest ever PPV draws – Georges St-Pierre and Conor McGregor – fought at 170lbs and 145lbs respectively.
The UFC has never really favoured any weight class over another, usually going by the size of personality and character rather than actual weight to determine who to push as a superstar. They have showcased Heavyweight fights over and above the smaller weight classes before, but that’s usually because HW fights are more likely to end in violence, even if it’s a little sloppy.
Generally, all weight classes are equal in the UFC.
Would Dana White implement this idea in the WWE? I think so, yeah. While the idea of a David vs. Goliath match is a pro-wrestling staple, perhaps we’d see bigger stars – maybe Sami Zayn, AJ Styles or Finn Balor – placed in the Cruiserweight division, which could then get equal billing.
Maybe we’d even see the title be named the ‘WWE World Cruiserweight Title’ to go along with the ‘WWE World Heavyweight Title’.
It’s an idea that I think could definitely push WWE’s smaller wrestlers onto another level, and I think as a great promoter who’s had success in the past with smaller fighters, Dana would agree.
#5 It’s all about wins and losses, or is it?
This is one of the biggest differences between the UFC and WWE. The question of whether wins and losses actually matter.
UFC tends to treat them as being more important than anything else, and with good reason – fans have been up in arms before, if a fighter coming off a loss has been pushed into a title fight, and obviously in a real – rather than pre-determined – sport, wins and losses are how you track who’s on the up and who’s going down.
Two or three losses in a row and a fighter can easily find themselves on the way out of the UFC.
WWE, meanwhile, seems to have run with the idea that the results of matches are simply just another tool to help them tell the story of a feud. After all, with so many matches on TV each week, who’s going to remember the results anyway?
While that might be true, it doesn’t do any good for a wrestler’s credibility if he loses matches every single week. And if wins and losses are constantly traded then who actually looks like a real winner? The answer is nobody.
So which way is right, Dana’s or Vince’s? I think the answer is somewhere in the middle.
Sure, in wrestling the results don’t always matter – it’s the story that’s being told. But actually having wrestlers win consistently can help them become bigger stars, and of course, certain wins and losses are remembered – it’s why people still talk about Booker T’s loss to HHH at Wrestlemania XIX today.
On the flipside for the UFC, though, I don’t think they should be all-important. If you’ve got a fighter who consistently puts on entertaining fights, has a popular personality, or has come into the company with a big reputation and has fought a murderer’s row of opponents, they shouldn’t really be cut after two or three losses.
If Dana and Vince swapped places, we’d probably see the emphasis changed. For WWE, winning streaks, big victories over big names, and clean pinfalls would suddenly become vogue. Gone would be those awful distraction-into-roll-up finishes that everyone hates.
For the UFC, meanwhile, fighters like Sokoudjou – who came in with a big reputation but was cut after going 1-2 – might’ve lasted a little longer. Someone like Donald Cerrone would probably have a job for life.
Well, he probably has anyway, but you know what I mean. And we’d probably see more instances of someone like Nick Diaz being largely gifted a title shot due to his popularity. It’d be interesting to see for sure, and I think it’s the biggest change that could be made in both UFC and WWE if Dana and Vince swapped places.
Any other examples you can think of? How do you think each company would fare? Let us know!
Until next time....
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