WWE’s The Miz “Seeing Brock Lesnar win UFC, it’s a homage to the WWE” -Believes Pacquiao Takes Marquez

When you really look at it, the biggest reason as to why we became MMA fans (what we mean by me, is us, the Fight Hub TV staff) is and will always be professional wrestling. Sure, we were already big boxing fans, growing up with idols such as Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Mike Tyson, Roy Jones Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya but wrestling was something that delivered so much more than boxing at the time. It delivered the matches we wanted, it was unpredictable and you never knew who would end up where. I of course am referencing the era of the Monday Night Wars, a time in which pro wrestling reached mythic heights and even influenced our fight correspondent to dress up as Mick Foley for Halloween (yes, he had a Mr. Socko). Never again would wrestling reach this pinnacle and to this day I am convinced as to why, The UFC.

I became a converted UFC fan when the first season of The Ultimate Fighter was shown right after Monday Night Raw and little by little, MMA pulled me away from the scripted to the unscripted. Though when I look back, pro wrestling and MMA share common history and common pedigrees. Real shoot athletes such as Antonio Inoki, Bad News Brown and other pro wrestlers had knowledge of MMA techniques back when it was not even a sport. Brock Lesnar, Bobby Lashley, Krzysztof Soszynski, Josh Barnett are among current MMA fighters who at one time were professional wrestlers. If you were to go up to a joe blow MMA fan, I am pretty sure they were a hardcore pro wrestling fan back in the day and it is no surprise many of the superstars in the WWE are fans of combat sports.

We recently caught up with “The Miz” Mike Mizanin in Los Angeles a few weeks back as he talks the rivalry between Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez and of course Brock Lesnar and what it means to him when he sees a former WWE employee make the jump to MMA.