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WWE VP COMMENTS ON UFC AS PPV COMPETITION, ANOTHER BRAND SWITCH, BOOKER'S PROMOTION, PAUL LONDON & MORE
by Mike Johnson @ 1:30:00 PM on 2/28/2007

The Associated Press ran an article today on the three-way PPV battle between Ultimate Fighting Championships, boxing and professional wrestling, looking at UFC's growth in the last year. The basic jist of the story is that UFC is a hotter property right now and unlike WWE, has created a number of new stars. Boxing doesn't come up much. Geof Rochester, WWE's senior vice president of marketing, was quoted as saying the company isn't worried about UFC and has "the next Rock in John Cena." Based on recent UFC events I've attended at local bars in NYC, I can tell you WWE should take note, because those same bars aren't even carrying WWE PPVs at this point, while they are turning away patrons when they carry UFC PPV. WWE may not put over UFC publicly, but saying there's no worry is silly, considering they tried to sign away announcer Mike Goldberg and have started to introduce their own MMA character in Vladimir Kozlov. The AP article has been picked up already in a number of international markets.