WWE will begin airing the historic Mixed Match Challenge on Tuesday, January 16th via Facebook Watch, and it could be a game-changer for the company.
The innovative 12-week series will consist of a single-elimination tournament featuring mixed tag teams (one male superstar and one female superstar) from both Raw and SmackDown, and the winners of the tournament will donate $100,000 to charity. WWE sent out a press release announcing that "each [losing] team's charitable organization will automatically receive $10,000," noting that the list of charities WWE stars will be competing for includes Make-A-Wish, the Special Olympics and Connor's Cure.
WWE has revealed the full bracket for the tournament, and among the pairings announced for the show are Braun Strowman and Alexa Bliss as well as Charlotte Flair and Bobby Roode and the duo of Sasha Banks and Finn Balor. At least on the surface, the Mixed Match Challenge may seem like just another WWE show in a world that's full of them, but in reality, the show is a very big deal for both WWE and its superstars.
The MMC will mark the first-time WWE has ever aired a full-blown wrestling show through a nontraditional means like Facebook, with most of its previous content airing on TV, through AVOD (YouTube, etc.) or the WWE Network. That is one of the many reasons why the MMC could alter the landscape of WWE forever, but it certainly isn't the only one as more changes could be on the way, depending upon the success of the series.
Here are five reasons why WWE's Mixed Match Challenge is a bigger deal than some may think.
The MMC Gives WWE's Female Performers Another Big Stage
WWE's female superstars have found themselves earning opportunities to be booked as equals to its male superstars, and they're knocking it out of the park.
It's no secret that WWE's audience is now 40% female, the highest it's ever been, and it's safe to assume we can contribute that to the women's revolution that has portrayed WWE's female stars as legitimate athletes, especially over the last few years. We've recently witnessed the first-ever women's Money in the Bank and Hell in a Cell matches as well as the great Mae Young Classic tournament, and we will soon see the inaugural women's Royal Rumble, with an all-female WrestleMania main event likely not too far away.
WWE has even upped the amount of matches its female superstars have been participating in, as the January 8th edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter showed some surprisingly high match totals for many of its female superstars in 2017: Charlotte Flair (173), Natalya (161), Nia Jax and Sasha Banks (154), Alexa Bliss (148), Carmella (139), Bayley (138) and Naomi (127). The role of WWE's women has changed from secondary act to featured performer, and it's been a success as evidenced by the fact that the Mae Young Classic did very strong viewership on the WWE Network.
Now, the Mixed Match Challenge is set to make WWE's women more than just role players, as the booking unfortunately often portrays them. It's an opportunity for WWE's female performers to take center stage in front of a potentially humongous Facebook audience, and it could pave the way for the women's division to be featured even more prominently on both Raw and SmackDown.
Fresh Matchups
One of the things that made Survivor Series 2017 such an anticipated event is that the show offered fresh never-before-seen matchups, including AJ Styles vs. Brock Lesnar and Charlotte Flair vs. Alexa Bliss.
That was a welcome change from what can typically seem like a merry-go-round of repetitive matches (we're looking at you, The Bar and The Shield) because the brand split has limited the number of fresh matches we can get on Raw and SmackDown. Of course, the Mixed Match Challenge will not feature highly anticipated one-on-one matches like Flair vs. Asuka or AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, but it will be a breath of fresh air for fans to see stars who are normally on different shows get to interact with one another for a change.
WWE's TV viewership increases substantially when stars from both brands appear, and it's likely that, especially if the booking sets up must-see matches for each round of the MMC tournament, viewership will trend higher than many expect. The MMC, after all, is set to feature a number of the biggest stars in both the men's and women's divisions, including Banks, Balor, Strowman and Flair, which should go a long way toward providing exciting possibilities for fans.
We know that one of the biggest complains among diehard fans is that both Raw and SmackDown can feel too repetitive, but given how rare mixed tag team matches are and how infrequently Raw and SmackDown superstars go head-to-head, it's hard to complain about the freshness the MMC undoubtedly brings.
It May Pave The Way For Intergender Wrestling
WWE has largely shifted away from intergender wrestling, but that changed in November 2017 when Becky Lynch faced James Ellsworth on an episode of SmackDown.
Believe it or not, WWE had at one point reportedly planned on doing Ellsworth vs. Flair for the SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania 34, a strong sign that WWE has considered doing more intergender wrestling at a time when fans seem to be more progressive and would likely be more accepting of it. Intergender wrestling is one aspect of Lucha Underground that has made it a cult favorite of sorts, especially among fans who have grown tired of the repetitive nature of WWE, and LU has actually produced some very good intergender matches.
Reports that an intergender match was once in the cards for WWE's biggest pay-per-view of the year suggest that Vince McMahon is more open to innovative and unique ideas that could eventually develop into a big hit for the company. Especially with the way WWE has been pushing its female superstars as equals to its male superstars, the next logical step is for female performers to be featured as heavily as the men are, which is exactly what the MMC will accomplish.
The next step after that? To move from mixed tag team matches to full blown intergender wrestling, which may be tough to do but could certainly work if well executed.
The MMC Could Have A Huge Viewing Audience
According to Nielsen estimates (h/t SportsTVRatings), the USA Network, which airs both Raw and SmackDown, was available in more than 91 million homes in the United States in December 2017 while there are more than two billion monthly Facebook users, who spend, on average, about 50 minutes per day on the site.
See the difference there? A look at Raw's viewership archive shows that less than three million viewers tune in to a typical episode of Raw while that number is closer to 2.5 million for SmackDown. While no one is expecting one in every 30 Facebook users to watch the Mixed Match Challenge (because roughly that percentage tunes into Raw on the USA Network), it does show that, even when including the viewing audiences in other countries, WWE's Mixed Match Challenge can reach a much wider viewing audience than its standard programs, like Raw and SmackDown, do.
Thus, the Mixed Match Challenge will presumably put more eyeballs than usual on the WWE product purely because there likely are significantly more fans who will have access to it than have access to Raw or SmackDown. And if the show does big viewership on Facebook Watch, that could lead to more opportunities for WWE to air similar shows in the future.
It Will Be A Trial Run For WWE's Next TV Deal
According to the December 18th, 2017 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, WWE is using the MMC as a "trial" run of sorts with the hopes that if the series is successful, it could help give WWE more leverage during its upcoming TV contract negotiations and possibly even result in Raw and/or SmackDown moving to Facebook for its next TV deal.
WrestlingInc.com reports that most of WWE's major TV deals expire in late 2019, but negotiations for those deals are expected to begin soon as "the company hopes to announce the new US distribution plan for RAW & SmackDown some time between May 2018 and September 2018." Optimism about WWE signing a much more lucrative TV deal in the near future explains why its stock price has soared in recent weeks, even remaining high after Vince McMahon sold nearly $100 million worth of shares.
The USA Network would be foolish to let WWE go because Raw and SmackDown are the cornerstones of the network, but if WWE receives a significantly more lucrative offer elsewhere (perhaps from FOX), USA Network may have no choice but to move on. The hope within WWE, of course, is that the Mixed Match Challenge will do so well via Facebook Watch that Facebook and perhaps a few other suitors will emerge as contenders to land WWE's next TV deal.
At the very least, a successful MMC should drive up the asking price for Raw and SmackDown, which is exactly what makes the MMC more than just a tournament. It is indeed a real test run of sorts that could not only change the way fans consume WWE content for years to come but could also change how WWE operates if its next TV deal isn't what it's expected to be.
Blake Oestriecher is an elementary school teacher by day and a sports writer by night. He’s a contributor to the Forbes @SportsMoneyBlog, where he primarily covers WWE. You can follow him on Twitter @BOestriecher.
