UFC 83 Review: Breaking Kayfabe
"kayfabe. n. the showbiz and stagecraft of professional wrestling, including the ring personas of professional wrestlers, especially when maintained in public; insider knowledge of professional wrestling." - definition from DoubleTongued.Org (emphasis added)
"We're buddies. We might have a drink together, so please don't do anything to this guy. He's a gentleman. He just said stuff to hype up the fight and I did as well." - George St. Pierre on Matt Serra after his dominant victory at UFC 83
The influence of pro wrestling on the MMA industry is undeniable. Many top executives from across the industry grew up watching WWE, or more appropriately the WWF as it was formerly known, and take many of their cues from Vince McMahon's promotional model. That model is fairly simple at its core: Take two characters. Create a conflict between them. Tell a story that makes people care what happens when they square off. Deliver a resolution. Repeat.
The UFC's biggest business has followed that simple strategy to a tee whether it be Tito Ortiz v. Ken Shamrock, Chuck Liddell v. Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture v. Tim Sylvia, etc. The difference being, those "feuds" or "storylines" are real or at least real enough to be believed to be real by the general public. While everyone understands that "hyping up the fight" is part of the show, the conflicts aren't seen as fake.
The most simplistic explanation of the MMA-pro wrestling crossover is that those fans want to see real fights, but that is only part of the story. If that was the case then the biggest events would likely be those featuring the most competitive fights. Instead the UFC's two biggest pay-per-views in history featured what were believed to be uncompetitive fights. No one thought Shamrock had a chance against Ortiz and few gave Ortiz much of a chance against Liddell.
The fact is that real fights is only part of the equation and perhaps a smaller part than is widely assumed. The results suggest that it is authenticate conflicts that people want to see. That is not to discount the value of the fights themselves, which provide authenticate dispute resolution, but it does go a long way towards explaining why 785,000 will pay to watch a short one sided affair between Ortiz and Shamrock, but roughly half as many, of the same audience, will pay to watch Anderson Silva v. Dan Henderson, a battle of highly regard fighters with no real conflict.
It's also why I expect UFC 83 to do better than expected on pay-per-view. The fight garnered a lot of momentum thanks to the hype surrounding the seemingly real conflict between GSP and Serra. Saturday night fans went home happy with that conflict resolved, however, anyone paying close enough attention got the rug jerked out from the under them by St. Pierre's post fight comments.
As an isolated incident the incredibly brief and relatively unnoticed comment is nothing to get worked up about, but breaking kayfabe on a regular basis is not a good idea for industry. The magic of the hype only works if the audience is allowed to believe that these conflicts are real or at least based in reality. The audience is generally willing to look the other way after the payoff (or resolution) when the hated enemies shake hands and compliment each other, as with Ortiz-Shamrock, but that wink-wink "burying of the hatchet" is different from being outright told they've been had.
So while building the fight and blowing minor conflicts into outright "hatred" is just part of the business, it's part of the business better left unsaid.
