According to a Feb. 13 report from MMA Junkie, UFC President Dana White thinks MMA may become an Olympic sport in the wake of wrestling's demise.
The International Olympic Committee has plans to eliminate wrestling from the Olympics, starting with the 2020 games.
Many in the MMA community were unhappy with the decision, but White wasn't the least bit surprised.
"We bring spectators, eyeballs – whether it's TV or whatever it is," White said. "This sport draws. Wrestling doesn't. I can't be the guy to run out and try and save wrestling. I've been doing it for years. You know how many wrestling programs I funded over the past five, six years? A lot. Yeah, I don't want to see wrestling go away either. It's such a big part of the sport. But, something's going to happen here. It's going to evolve into mixed martial arts or something. I don't know. I don't think wrestling is going to go anywhere, but competitive wrestling definitely is."
White's argument is that MMA draws viewers, while wrestling does not. The Olympics needs sports that people want to watch, and White believes casual viewers don't want to watch wrestling.
"The problem is nobody wants to watch it," White said. "Any sport, especially these days, it's about selling tickets and eyeballs and viewers and all these other things. And there's been a lot of people saying, 'You've got to f---ing do something,' but – and Garry (Cook) and I were talking about this yesterday –what this could be is the evolution of mixed martial arts becoming an Olympic sport."
White noted that schools around the country are dropping wrestling from their programs.
"I've been battling this problem for years now," White told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) after a news conference for UFC on FUEL TV 7 in London. "Colleges are dropping it. High schools are dropping wrestling. The problem with wrestling is, it's an awesome base for mixed martial arts, for everything – I mean, I've never wrestled, but what I hear it does to guys that wrestle, it changes peoples' lives. It's this grueling, hard work and dedication – all the things that go in with being a wrestler."
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