On this week’s “Unlocking The Cage,” Jimmy Smith discussed how he got on WWE’s radar, and whether or not he thinks WWE will ever cross-promote with an MMA organization.
Jimmy Smith was asked how he got on WWE’s radar:
“An executive that I worked with at Spike TV when I was in my Bellator days moved to WWE like 7 or 8 years ago,” Smith said.
“While I was in Bellator, this guy, who I got along with really well, a great guy, went from Viacom Spike to WWE. The WWE was reloading talent. They just signed the Peacock deal, they had all these shows they were doing, and they wanted to make sure they had enough on air talent to handle all their demand. So I got a call from Michael Cole who said, “Hi. This is Michael Cole from WWE. So-and-so who you worked with at Bellator gave me your information. He said you are a very good broadcaster. Can you come in and audition?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’, and the rest is history. I did my audition and here I am, the voice of Monday Night RAW every week.”
More and more wrestling promotions have been working together. MMA promotions have started to cross-promote with each other. Jimmy was asked if we will ever see WWE participate with other wrestling promotions or UFC will work with other MMA organizations:
“Here is the rule of thumb. The smaller promotion doesn’t hesitate to cross promote because they have less to lose. If Kayla Harrison loses to Cyborg, okay, fine, Cyborg is the bigger name anyway. If Cyborg loses to Kayla Harrison, there is the implication that, ‘Hey, maybe PFL is just better than Bellator.’ It’s always better to shoot up and miss then shoot down and hit. If you’re the UFC and WWE, you’re the top dogs. You have no reason to bring up another product and make them look like they are on your product’s level.”
“If so and so from AEW, and I don’t know because I don’t have time to watch AEW, but if somebody came up from AEW and it was WWE vs AEW, what you’re implying is they are on the same level. This champion from AEW, whoever it is, I know CM Punk is the champion right now so lets say CM Punk gets in there against Roman Reigns, what you’re saying is this guy is on Roman Reigns’ level, and the WWE will never, ever do that, and why should they? UFC is never going to do that with anybody at any other level. Will we see more of it? Yes. Is WWE and UFC worried about it? No, they are not.”
