September 12, 2005 Observer Newsletter: UFC & WWE rivalry heats up, Hurricane Katrina and pro wrestling in New Orleans

It’s on. It’s really on. Ten years ago this week, the Monday Night Wars began and turned around the fortunes of what at the time was an industry deep in the hole with every major promotion running at a loss. UFC, with no television, was doing PPV numbers equal to wrestling.

Over the past decade, we’ve seen wrestling reach new heights, and then, with the death of WCW, become an industry where it was harder to get full-time work than ever before. WCW became the hottest wrestling company in history within a few years, and then died. UFC all but died, and was then resurrected. WWE set records that blew away what WCW had accomplished. And then the popularity came tumbling down. Then UFC came back from the dead. The business changed an incredible amount over the past decade in the U.S.

And we knew the business was going to change again next month. But until this week, we just didn’t realize how much.

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