WWE adapting to MMA

**broken fingers** · Posted On: 5/05/2006 11:10pm

watching WWE Smackdown! one tv today. I haven't watched this show in a long while, so I don't know how long this has been going on...

Chris Benoit vs ??? Finlay

at the beginning of the match, the announcers talk about how bad ass these guys are at submissions and how the are experts of the matter.

as soon as the bell rings, they clinch, Chris Benoit pulls guard. Benoit goes for armbars, and Kimuras and fails intentionally of course.
Finlay eventually gets out and later in the match starts to GNP on Benoit. the match then continues in its normal wrestling shinanigans.

has the WWE been doing this lately? or is it something that they have always been doing?

thanks,
BF

**Pr0phecy** · Posted On: 5/06/2006 12:25am

Wow. Seriously though, the only grappling that I ever saw in 10 years of that show is Kurt Angle getting a leglock.

**Hurt** · Posted On: 5/06/2006 12:25am

Damn, I'd have wanted to see that.

But yeah they're called worked shoots. Has to be because of the MMA craze but I keep hearing it's been the norm in Japan for a while.

Maybe it's just me but I don't see the two as being entirely unrelated.

**meng_mao** · Posted On: 5/06/2006 2:04am

Originally Posted by Hurt

worked shoots.

you can work shoots? I thought shoots were by definition real?

**PointyShinyBurn** · Posted On: 5/06/2006 4:17am

Originally Posted by meng_mao

you can work shoots? I thought shoots were by definition real?

Tis more correctly referred to as 'shoot style' methinks.

**Odacon** · Posted On: 5/06/2006 4:22am

The undertaker is mad into all that MMA stuff, working triangles and such into his matches.

**Neil-o-Mac** · Posted On: 5/06/2006 4:25am

See also: the Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit match at Wrestlemania X-7, the Undertaker vs. Angle match at this year's No Way Out (Taker is a big MMA fan and has been incorporating some MMA-type stuff into his matches in the last couple of years, even wears MMA gloves as part of his ring attire. What's funny about 'Taker though is that he gets talked up as the 'best pure striker in WWE', when most of his big moves involve grabbing the opponent in some fashion (Tombstone, Chokeslam, 'old school' rope walking etc)).

Of course, the WWE has plenty of guys that still wouldn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch, like The Great Kali, who was hired simply because he's fucking huge, but thank **** for guys like Angle, Benoit and the likes who are still putting some actual wrestling on display.