It is funny to see how really something can change in a matter of months. The world is ever changing and this runs true for the fight game. You have promoters buying out other fighters contracts, promotions snatching up other peoples fighters and promoters buying out other promoters. When the UFC bought Strikeforce earlier in the year it gave me a strange but sharp deja vu to March of 2001. During that time, pro wrestling was king as the UFC was still in its infant stages and Pride was becoming a hit in Japan. I remember watching an episode of WWE Monday Night Raw when a odd comment came via good ol’ Jim Ross about a huge Vince McMahon announcement.
Now excuse our memories, it gets a little blurry but all I remember is McMahon saying he bought out WCW and me instantly tuning into WCW Night Of Champions that Monday night and seeing McMahon’s son on the TBS. My jaw dropped. I was shocked but also static at the fact that I would now be seeing underused talent such as Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Booker T and many others against the WWE stars at the time. Many questioned if the buyout was legal and fans worried what would happen to the product as WCW brought out the best of WWE. In the end though, pro wrestling fans won as dream matches were finally made. Fast forward to March 12 of 2011 (oddly the same month WWE bought WCW) and I was taken taken back to 2001.
So is this buyout good or bad for competition and us as MMA fans? Well we wanted to get a outside view on this so we sent our fight correspondent Marcos Villegas to speak with the biggest promoters in the boxing game about this buyout and believe me you won’t want to miss their answers. Gary Shaw, Bob Arum, Oscar De La Hoya and even Showtime analyst Al Bernstein chime in and give their opinions on what they think of the buyout and if it can ever happen in boxing.
