How Pro Wrestling Influenced the Fight Game: MayGregor is Pure Pro Wrestling

At its very best, wrestling takes larger-than-life personalities and catapult their personas into an entirely otherworldly stratosphere. Many fighters have created their own personas as a way of increasing their profile and captivating the viewing audience or bringing them in to see them finally get beat. People love to cheer their favourite fighters, but even more, they love to see someone be taken down a peg. Chris Eubank, Tito Ortiz, Chael Sonnen and most relevant to us now: Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor have all made a living this way. Chael was known for directly quoting “Superstar” Billy Graham in order to build momentum for his second title fight with Anderson Silva with lines such as:

“Joe Rogan tonight is not for questions for me, this is your night brother. I want to know how you feel being only inches away from greatness.”

MayGregor: A clash of pro wrestling personae

Over the summer people clung to every word of two men as they did a four-city tour to promote a fight between a retired boxer and a competitor from a different sport. Videos of McGregor’s put downs and promos did the rounds, as did images of Floyd Mayweather flashing money to live up to his “Money” moniker. This has led combats sports to this current money fight era. After all Mayweather has been pound for pound the best for the majority of his boxing career, McGregor has a fantastic MMA record and no actual boxing experience. This is a silly fight, but we are buying in droves in order to see one or the other be knocked out. Akin to the old time carnival wrestlers who worked out they could make more money from illusion than contest, MayGregor have found a way to part people from their cash like no two men in history.

Origins of self-promotion: Ali & Gorgeous George

The first lesson in self-promotion in combat sports began with “Gorgeous” George Wagner. Gorgeous George is regarded as the father of the wrestling persona: starting in the 1940s, he invented an extravagant, flamboyant “pretty boy” character who had wavy blonde hair, colourful robes and outfits and was accompanied by beautiful valets to the ring for his matches. The crowd widely jeered his persona and came out to his matches in hopes of seeing him defeated. Consequently, Gorgeous exploded into the one of the most famous (and hated) wrestlers of all time. In pro wrestling parlance, these heels (villains) and are often seen to exhibit unlikeable, appalling and deliberately offensive and demoralizing personality traits such as arrogance, cowardice or contempt for the audience.

It was in June 1961 that a young Muhammad Ali first saw Gorgeous George in what would be a life changing night. What he learned from that was if he could be mouthy and create a persona, he would either infuriate the public with his youthful arrogance or attract them with his wordplay. As he later recalled:

“I saw 15,000 people coming to see this man get beat. And his talking did it. I said this is a good idea!”

56 years later: Still a carnival approach

The world tour was a showcase of McGregor’s rhetoric all cribbed from classic wrestling; and a personality combining Ric Flair’s wardrobe and Vince McMahon’s walk. Mayweather meanwhile created the persona of “Money Mayweather” to bring the fans in droves, hoping to watch him lose. These are two men who have taken the P.T. Barnum approach, showmen lining their coffers at all costs, with predictions of the largest purses and pay-per-view sales in history all for a gimmick fight. There are people talking about a fight who never talk about fighting in any capacity. They may be wearing 8-ounce gloves but the real attraction was a war of words, the fight is an afterthought to most people. It can all be boiled down to that lesson Cassius Clay learned that night in Vegas 56 years ago.

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Mixed Martial Facts

Articles covering all aspects of Martial Arts, from MMA, kickboxing, boxing, wrestling, pro wrestling, two dudes fighting anywhere

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