Dana White gives further details on why he didn’t get along with Vince McMahon in the past.
For decades, UFC and WWE have operated in similar spaces and seen plenty of crossover despite appealing to different markets and audiences. The two companies officially merged in September to form TKO, bringing Vince McMahon and Dana White together as business partners.
Speaking on Triggered, Dana explained why the two men didn’t get along in the past.
“It’s been an interesting relationship with Vince McMahon. I never saw Vince as competition, but I’m thinking Vince, in his heyday, he saw everyone as competition. He was one of those guys that would fucking stick it to me, just to do it. We were about to do a deal with NBC, and it ends up, we get to the one yard line, and Vince has the final say of who can go on USA Network and who can’t if you’re a combat sport. Lorenzo [Lorenzo Fertitta] and I flew out to Connecticut, sat down with him, we do all the small talk, ‘We’re doing a deal with NBC.’ Vince sits back like Vince sits. ‘We’re about to do this deal, we’re about to have fights on NBC and everything else, but you need to sign off on it.’ Vince says, ‘Yeah, I’m not going to do that.’ We’re like, ‘Why?’ ‘Eh, I’m just not interested in it. I don’t like the idea of you guys being on USA Network.’ The whole deal blows up. At the end of the day, it all worked out better, we ended up on FOX. That’s just one of ten times where Vince did it,” claimed Dana.
Dana didn’t give a timeline as to when Vince nixed the deal. UFC signed with FOX in August 2011.
UFC and WWE programming were linked together in 2005 when The Ultimate Fighter would air on Spike TV after WWE Raw.
White continued, “Now, Vince and I are in business together, and Vince couldn’t be a better partner now. Now, Vince has been an incredible partner. Literally keeps me in the loop with everything going on, making sure I’m cool with decisions that could affect the UFC.”
As business partner with TKO, White serves as the UFC CEO while McMahon is the Executive Chairman of TKO Group.
Vince previously claimed that he’s a better businessman than Dana. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
