It’s a historic day for WWE as the company merged with UFC to form a new publicly traded company known as TKO. Even though the two companies have merged MMA and professional wrestling are obviously quite different, so UFC and WWE are still expected to move forward as separate entities.
However, over the years fans have seen a few MMA stars cross over to professional wrestling, and wrestlers have also crossed over into the MMA world. While talking to ESPN about the future Nick Khan indicated that there’s talk of more UFC fighters potentially joining WWE once they finish up with MMA.
“UFC fighters are gonna stay focused on the UFC and WWE superstars obviously do something different in our ring, but you also see in the UFC people with big personalities who, once their UFC run is done, once the UFC and the fighter says, ‘Hey, maybe now’s the time to call it a day,’ could those people have a longer life at WWE, an extended life with TKO? We think so.”
Ronda Rousey was able to achieve major success after joining WWE as she went on to become one of the first women to main event WrestleMania. Brock Lesnar also found success when he made the jump to MMA as he managed to win the UFC Heavyweight Championship.
A number of MMA fighters have expressed interest in working with WWE such as Conor McGregor who posted the following after the Endeavor deal was announced:
@wwe, @ufc, @TheMacLife #itsinevitable pic.twitter.com/4m75uwZr23
— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) April 2, 2023
One way or another it will be interesting to see who else crosses over in the future.
