Wrestling is, has, and always will be Sports Entertainment, even if it was presented for years as the real deal. Vince McMahon coined the phrase to skirt passed the Boxing And Gaming Commissions and avoid paying certain fees - which wasn’t a bad move at all, despite what his former opposing promoters might have thought the move.

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But that doesn’t mean WWE or any wrestling promotion is the only form of Sports Entertainment - there have been plenty of programs over the years that have presented athleticism as some sort of scripted event. Not necessarily storylines and finishes being scripted, but all kinds of different forms of “Sports Entertainment.”

10 WMAC Masters

Not sure about the rest of the world, but in the American northeast during the nineties, few things were better than Saturday mornings. The morning started with all sorts of cartoons, then there was wrestling and then there was the Mortal Kombat-inspired WMAC Masters. For legitimacy's sake, the show was hosted by Shannon Lee, daughter of legendary Bruce Lee.

The show featured storylines told against a video game-like setting and starred a couple of names who had done the motion capture work for the original Mortal Kombat. Nearly thirty years later, The New Day paid homage to the show with one of their more recent set of tights.

9 The Broken Skull Challenge

Stone Cold Steve Austin isn’t as prolific as other retired wrestlers are. But what he does decide to lend his name to is usually very cool. Lasting for three years and five seasons, Country Music Television and The Texas Rattlesnake delivered The Broken Skull Challenge.

Athletes from all sorts of MMA, CrossFit, or Spartan Race worlds converted onto The Broken Skull Ranch to compete in a series of challenges that would test the mettle of each contestant. It would all go down to The Pit, where competitors try to wrestle one another to the outside of the “ring.” The winner would then compete in the Skullbuster Challenge, a half-mile-long obstacle course.

8 Titan Games

Since it worked so well got Steve Austin, his old frenemy The Rock decided to try his hand at the tough man/strong man competition challenge show. If there’s any show or movie coming from The Rock and Seven Bucks Productions, it deserves at least a look.

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Several years ago, he came out with a show called The Titan Games. The show was a reality/competition show with the contests based The Rock’s own insane workouts. Unfortunately, the show ended due to COVID, however, it’s also how the WWE discovered Ivy Nile, who competed in the first episode.

7 Roller Derby

Only a few decades after modern professional wrestling started in the early 1900s, Roller Derby started in 1935 in Chicago, Illinois. Over the years on television, it was often paired up with WWE as a follow-up to try and get some of the wrestling audience. While the sport does have some detractors, think about the level of difficulty it takes.

Similar to ice hockey, you need to skate around a rink while hunting down a Jammer and prevent him/her from lapping the opposing team. The sport even has had a movie or two produced about the sport, the most popular was Drew Barrymore’s Whip It.

6 Harlem Globetrotters

Here’s your phone trivia fact for today - the nearly 100-year-old franchise, The Harlem Globetrotters originated on The South Side Of Chicago and not across 110th street on Manhattan Island.

The team is basketball’s most famous touring comical/exhibition team, and over the years have had several of its members go to the NBA, like the amazing Wilt Chamberlain for example. Other members like the legendary Meadowlark Lemon would go on to inspire future NBA legends like Michael Jordan.

5 MMA

In the mid-late nineties, MMA started to formulate on sports networks like ESPN. These were brutal, and sometimes seemingly lawless competitions. But under the watchful eye of Dana White, the Mixed Martial Arts world and in particular, UFC exploded in terms of scope.

Dana White took a page of McMahon’s playbook and did all he could to make the sport more marketable. Yes, the action in the ring is very real, but the promotion of all the fights is straight out of the WWE.

4 WBF

Vince McMahon did all he could to expand his Sports Entertainment empire several times throughout his career. He took his love of bodybuilding and tried to combine bodybuilding contests with WWE-like storylines to create The World Bodybuilding Federation. He even was able to sign Lex Luger to a contract and circumvent the WCW non-compete and appear in the WBF.

Unfortunately, between a bad motorcycle accident and the steroid trials ramping up, and several other big reasons, Luger never posed and the WBF closed up shop real quick.

3 American Ninja Warrior

With all kinds of obstacle course-themed shows out there, American Ninja Warrior has stood the test of time. Various competitors from across America compete in various courses from around the world with one goal in mind.

They’re trying to reach the summit of Mount Midoriyama. In the show’s sixth season, future NXT star Katana Chance would become the first female to complete the show’s qualifying courses.

2 The XFL

Apparently, the professional version of “Kill The Man With The Ball” known as football wasn’t quite violent enough for the former WWE Chairman. He would announce that he was starting his own football league - the XFL.

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While McMahon had assured the world that the league wouldn’t feature any of the absurdity of the WWE, critics couldn’t leave well enough alone and plenty of potshots were taken before the league even started. But after the second week, it was completely clear that the company didn’t know how to run a football league and didn’t hire the right infrastructure to do so.

1 American Gladiators

Obstacle courses and CrossFit type of games with big muscle-bound meaty men and women serving as blockers and enemy combatants. The American Gladiators was certainly cheesy by today’s standards. But in the late eighties and early nineties, it was the perfect pallet cleanser to the WWE’s Saturday morning show.

With standout competitions like Assault, Joust, and Atlasphere; not to mention the dreaded Eliminator, Gladiators was the premier sports entertainment game on TV.