Another WWE Superstar gets into the MMA Bandwagon. This time, it’s John ”Bradshaw” Layfield…
It seems that’s the trend these days.
After Ken Shamrock did the UFC to WWE then back to UFC exodus years ago, the gap between fake wrestling and reality combat got a little closer. And now that former WWE stars like Bobby Lashley and current UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar are making a name for themselves in the world of mixed martial arts, it was only a matter of time before another WWE superstar gets into MMA.
The latest one to jump into the bandwagon is now former WWE star John ”Bradshaw” Layfield. Known to wrestling fans as ”JBL”, Layfield has now entered into the sport of mixed martial arts hoping to take advantage of the growing fan base of the sport.
However, unlike Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley, John ”Bradshaw” Layfield won’t be fighting in some ring or inside the Octagon for the UFC. What he plans to do is an entirely different approach from the two former WWE stars. He plans to put up his own MMA promotion.
You read it, Layfield is going to help the Kentucky based promotion, Vyper Fight League try to make a splash into the world of mixed martial arts. He’ll get help from Bruce Pritchard and Danny Davis, both also coming from the pro wrestling world.
Layfield thinks mixed martial arts is in a stage where pro wrestling was 20 years ago, when Hulk Hogan was a household name. They already have discussions with local TV networks for a possible Vyper Fight League reality show. Layfield says it would be more like the ”TapouT” reality show and less like ”The Ultimate Fighter” spawned by the UFC.
Layfield thinks he can do better than what Dana White has done for MMA.
”Dana White should’ve never booked that fight [between Lesnar and Frank Mir],” John Layfield said. ”That was the one fallibility that Brock had was he didn’t know submissions. He’s a brute, he was a national champion [in wrestling] but he won it by beating up people. Not even sure he’s a great wrestler, he’s just a great athlete.”
”You put him in there against Frank Mir, I would have never done that. I would’ve gave him eight tomato cans in a row, you don’t have to fix them [the fights], but let Brock become your biggest draw. You almost hurt your biggest draw, thank god he came back, at least for Brock and for fans of Brock and beat Randy Couture.”
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Comments
June 14th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Is Layfield serious, every fighter in MMA has some type of background in submissions, the Mir fight was from my point view the right thing for Lesnar, as the guy had matches overseas and won with brute force, loosing to a submission hold made Lesnar have to go back to the drawing board with his training team and see if he could adjust for that aspect
May 1st, 2010 at 11:31 am
I love watching wrestling and WWE on TV.wrestling is an awesome sport.;-,