ESPN announced that John Cena will be host of this summer’s ESPY Awards, which some people found surprising when you look at who has hosted the ESPY’s in the past. Drake, Samuel L. Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Lebron James, and now John Cena. One of those names is definitely not like the others.

And if you’ve tuned in to SportsCenter at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night for the past few months, you’ve probably said to yourself, “Why are they interviewing a WWE guy?” And that’s a totally reasonable thing to say.

I’ve been watching ESPN my whole life and they have never talked about WWE, except if it involved Brock Lesnar. But Lesnar was a UFC Heavyweight Champion, so he had crossed into a realm of sports that is more up ESPN’s alley. But now Jonathan Coachman, who was an announcer for WWE from 1999-2008, interviews wrestlers on a weekly basis.

So after all of this, I have to wonder, why? Why is ESPN, the name in sports news, talking about professional wrestling? Sure, they’re athletes, but it’s not the UFC, and the matches are predetermined (meaning the winners are decided before the match). ESPN made NASCAR a legitimate sport. And as we know, putting the ESPN name behind something makes it legitimate. So why is ESPN putting their name behind guys who already know how the fight will go?

It could be because ESPN seems to get better ratings when they talk about professional wrestling. On the iTunes’ sports and recreation podcasts, wrestling podcasts, or podcasts hosted by former wrestling personalities, rank 19, 23, 38, 46, 48, 49 and 59. ESPN’s Wrestling Podcast, Cheap Heat, checks in at 59^th, but it has been in the top 10 before.

Another reason could be that WWE has somehow managed to get in front of the whole concussion thing. Usually any time someone gets hit in the head, we think something has gone wrong and they could have taken the bump badly. But if you go back on the WWE Network, which is available for just $9.99 a month, and look at matches from ten years ago, you see wrestlers getting hit in the head over and over again with chairs no problem.

On the flip side, the NFL is getting railroaded by concussion issues, so maybe they’re trying to hedge their bets by using WWE to fill the void of NFL coverage if something absurd happens (i.e. The NFL folding). Which I know sounds like horrible planning because there is now way that WWE can fill the monstrous void that would be left without the NFL, but could it fill 15% of that void? Maybe.

And it’s not just ESPN that’s giving the WWE more legitimacy; last year at WWE’s pay-per-view SummerSlam, Jon Stewart made his first public appearance since leaving the Daily Show where he got involved in a match between John Cena and Seth Rollins, inevitably costing Cena the match. Stewart paid for it the next night when John Cena hit him with an "Attitude Adjustment", Cena’s finishing maneuver.

Now from the WWE side of this, they are fully embracing the new relationship with ESPN, as they should. As I said earlier, ESPN makes every thing it touches more legitimate. So while WWE’s ratings are down, it makes sense for them to embrace anything that ESPN can give them. Who knows, maybe there is a 40-year-old dad with sons who used to like wrestling and he’ll see it and say, “Hey, maybe my sons and I can like this together.”

ESPN and WWE’s current working relationship might be small at this point, but it’s getting rapidly bigger. So while WWE is currently pushing hard for their “New Era”, it will be interesting to see how ESPN fits into that era, and if they will step into a new era of their own.