In recent years, World Wrestling Entertainment has turned its vast archive of old school wrestling footage into found money. WWE has repurposed its past into one of its biggest cash cows, through DVD sales, on-demand video services and other ventures.
What's so different about WWE in 2006, as compared to the old-timey rasslin' you watched as a kid? Whatever it is, the headliners haven't changed all that much. At this writing, there are seven matches announced for this weekend's WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view, with a total of 16 men scheduled to step into the ring for matches.
Of those 16 men, eight of them -- including several of the biggest draws on the show -- are at least 40 years old.
Just for fun, let's compare a couple of classic SummerSlam moments to the 2006 lineup:
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| How would Hulk Hogan do in a UFC PPV fight? He better hope his replaced hip holds out. (AP) |
2006: 53-year-old dinosaur Hulk Hogan will hobble to the ring one more time to face "The Legend Killer" Randy Orton, some 21 years after beating Randy's father "Cowboy" Bob Orton in a match televised on NBC. (Randy was only five years old at the time.)
1992: "Nature Boy" Ric Flair -- at a spry, young 43 years of age -- uses a steel chair to disrupt a title match between Randy Savage and his hyper-spaz challenger, the Ultimate Warrior.
2006: Ric Flair -- now 57 -- battles Mick Foley (no spring chicken himself at age 41) in an "I Quit" match that promises to feature enough blood and weapons to make that 1992 steel chair incident look like a day at the retirement home.
There will be more excitement from the over-40 set at SummerSlam, as WWE chairman Vince McMahon (at a whopping 61 years of age) teams with son Shane McMahon to battle Shawn Michaels (41) and McMahon-in-law Triple H.
The World Heavyweight Title joins the seniors tour as challenger Batista (40) tries to regain the belt from champion King Booker (41).
To be fair, WWE does have some younger stars on the roster. SummerSlam will feature two (count 'em: two!) people in their 20s -- former WWE champion John Cena (29) and Orton (26). Current WWE champion Edge (who will defend against Cena) barely misses the cut at 32, as does crowd favorite Rey Mysterio at 31. Yep, that's about it. All the rest are still waiting for their match, if they get one.
If WWE is relying heavily on the nostalgia factor to sell PPVs, it seems the Ultimate Fighting Championship is trying to balance the old with the new.
The most exciting and talked-about fighters in UFC tend to be on the younger side. I guess that's to be expected, as UFC is a true competition where the object is to assault people. Don't get me wrong -- wrestlers get hurt very often, despite the matches being predetermined. But it's probably safer for Hulk Hogan to work a WWE match with a replaced hip and a variety of nagging injuries than it would be for him to engage Tito Ortiz in hand-to-hand combat inside the Octagon.
At UFC's Fight Night card on Aug. 17, Diego "The Nightmare" Sanchez won a unanimous decision over Karo "The Heat" Parisyan in a spectacular, back-and-forth welterweight fight. Sanchez was one of two winners of UFC's first season of The Ultimate Fighter reality show, and he has amassed a record of 17-0 (now 18-0) in MMA. Along the way, he earned plenty of praise for his well-rounded attack, and many critics as well, who disliked his cockiness and felt he was overrated.
Parisyan was supposed to be the fighter to knock Sanchez down a peg and expose him as overrated. Instead -- despite an incredible fight by Parisyan -- it was Sanchez who outlasted his opponent with a relentless ground-and-pound attack, even knocking out one of Parisyan's teeth in the third round for good measure (leading to one of the coolest slow-motion replays I have ever seen on TV, I might add.)
For the record, Parisyan is 23 and Sanchez is 24. Despite only being two years past the legal drinking age, Parisyan is often viewed as a mixed martial arts veteran, having competed in his first MMA fight at age 14.
Also on the Aug. 17 Fight Night card, another first-season alum of The Ultimate Fighter, Chris Leben (26), put down opponent Jorge Santiago (25) 35 seconds into the second round with a huge KO from what Leben himself admitted was a bit of a wild swing. The youth movement continues in UFC.
On deck for the next PPV (UFC 62 on Aug. 26), we get a rematch between yet another pair of first-season Ultimate Fighter castmates, Forrest Griffin (27) and "American Psycho" Stephan Bonnar (29). Griffin lost a decision to UFC top dog Tito Ortiz on a recent PPV, which proved to observers that Griffin could hang with the best at the top of the card. Bonnar's brightest moment was a near-defeat of Griffin in the Ultimate Fighter season one final, in a fight people are still talking about for the sheer guts and determination both men displayed. A "near defeat" is still not a win, though, so look for Bonnar to step it up this time around.
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| "Say what? Where's my hearing aid?" At 53, Hogan can still beat you AND your dad up. (AP) |
Not anymore.
Season four of The Ultimate Fighter -- subtitled "The Comeback" -- is all about giving fighters with a history in UFC a chance to rekindle the flame and return to glory. The first episode aired right after Ultimate Fight Night on Aug. 17. Upon first viewing, the concept intrigues me. Yet I have to wonder how far these fighters can go after the season ends.
I think we all enjoy a nice feel-good success story, and watching a fallen-from-grace fighter claw his way back up the ladder meets that criteria. But they'll be fighting a bunch of equally-fallen fighters to get back into UFC.
What happens when they get there, and join the regular crew of guys that never took a back step? Will they still be able to hang in the Octagon? Does the ability to defeat a few has-beens equal the ability to crack another one of Parisyan's teeth out of his mouth? I guess we'll see.
In the meantime, the next Ultimate Fight Night (Oct. 10) is supposed to feature another rematch between Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock. Shamrock is 42 years old.
Insert "old fart" joke here.
