In yet another sign mixed martial arts is replacing professional wrestling in the public consciousness, Paul Heyman has taken another major step into the MMA world, and the former owner/creative visionary behind the ECW promotion, who also served as Vince McMahon's Head Writer on WWE Smackdown (where he was paired up on camera and behind the scenes with current UFC Champion Brock Lesnar) has now fully embraced MMA as the future.
"I think it's pretty apparent the pro wrestling audience has gravitated over to MMA," Heyman told FightHype this morning in an exclusive interview. "Brock Lesnar made the transition before the transition was cool to make, and now he's the biggest star in the sport."
Heyman, who is writing Lesnar's book with Brock, was reportedly very close to taking over the creative reigns for TNA Wrestling on Spike TV (home of UFC) over the summer, but it appears the talks are off.
"TNA is trying to grab market share from Vince McMahon, who is fully aware of the diminishing market for pro wrestling on a global basis," Heyman said, "Taking market share away from him when the public interest in the entire genre is down is an uphill battle to say the least. (TNA President) Dixie Carter is a phenomenal person, a really nice human being. I have nothing but respect and admiration for what she's trying to accomplish."
"But," Heyman adds, "I would suggest that in today's pop culture, selling a kid on a mixed martial arts fighter is going to be a far easier play than trying to tell that kid pro wrestling is still cool, or even cool again."
Heyman teamed up with his production partner Mitchell K. Stuart, an Emmy Award winning Director with a reputation for being a digital pioneer, to form the Looking 4 Larry Agency, a 360 branding/marketing/advertising firm in New York City. Their first client was EA SPORTS.
"EA wanted us to do some branding on their MMA video game, and we had just opened our agency that very same day," Stuart told FightHype in an exclusive interview this morning, "it was a natural fit."
The new agency filmed 5 vignettes with Cung Le, Fabricio Werdum, Frank Shamrock, Gilbert Melendez, and the controversial Diaz 2 weeks ago. "Every piece is centered around the fighter's individual personality," Stuart told us, "it's all about branding them so kids want to play them or fight them in the game."
Heyman, known as pro wrestling's premier character builder, is very careful in describing his ambitions in the MMA world. "I have a book to finish with Brock Lesnar. That's priority number one," Heyman said, "I'm very proud of these vignettes. I think the fans of these awesome MMA fighters audience will be very pleased as well."
Heyman launched Season Two of his digital show The Heyman Hustle around the Diaz piece, which can be seen here. More on the Diaz Hustle can be found here: http://heymanhustle.craveonline.com/articles/news/108508-nick-diaz-heyman-hustle