More WWE Shows Running Head-To-Head With UFC? – WWE recently ran against UFC 276 during fight week in Las Vegas with WWE’s Money In The Bank, and according to the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it won’t be the last time.
Running premium live events head-to-head against UFC shows is set to become more frequent, as Nick Khan is hoping to move WWE’s big events from the traditional Sunday slot to Saturdays. Interestingly, this is the opposite of what the unrelated Tony Khan is doing with AEW — while that company has run events on Saturdays in the past, Tony is wanting to switch to Sundays, except when going against the NFL.
Despite this, there will be some overlap when it comes to the next pay-per-view AEW runs, ROH’s Death Before Dishonor on July 23. While there will not be a direct conflict between ROH and the MMA company, UFC will be running an event in England earlier in the day, headlined by Curtis Blaydes and Tom Aspinall.
UFC typically runs a show almost every Saturday throughout the calendar year, so if WWE does push to have more shows on that day, conflicts are naturally going to happen. That will be the case for WWE SummerSlam later this month, and there’s a potential conflict happening in November, as well.
While this was once seen as a bad idea for WWE’s revenue stream, as their numbers used to be down following a UFC PPV when they ran the following day, the business model has changed. Because people don’t typically buy WWE shows anymore as PPVs, fans end up watching them in their own time, which leads to less conflict taking place between those who want to watch both — plus the crossover between the audiences is reportedly smaller than it used to be.
All of the premium live events that WWE currently has scheduled for the remainder of 2022 will be taking place on a Saturday, which is a sign of the direction that the company is going. If WWE’s Money In The Bank is anything to go by, that might not be a bad business model, as the company has touted that it was the most viewed MITB of all time while pulling in the second-highest gate in the history of that event. On top of that, merchandise sales were reportedly up 95% at the show as well, proving that going against UFC isn’t always a negative.
