Eric Bischoff was talking on the 83 Weeks Podcast last week and went into detail about how he was offered the opportunity to purchase UFC long ago when it started up.
UFC was founded in 1993 and is estimated to be worth over $7 Billion dollars today. Bischoff said that back in 1993, UFC was no competition for WCW. Bischoff said, “Nobody looked at it as competition because it was just a tough man contest. Not taking anything away from people involved in it, but it was being promoted as a tough man type. It wasn’t being promoted the way it was being promoted today. I don’t think anybody looked at it as a threat or competition. As a fan, I was curious about it but not concerned about it.”
Bischoff went on to say that he was contacted by UFC and asked if he was interested in purchasing the company. Bischoff said, “If we’d have known then what we know now, I’d own it. I was offered to buy it at one point for 2 million dollars and I didn’t bother to return the phone call.”
UFC would end up selling in 2001 for $2 Million to Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta. Bischoff talked about this sale by saying, “The Fertitta’s, when they bought it, people didn’t realize how many 10s of millions of dollars the Fertitta’s lost before it turned around. There was probably over a hundred million dollars of red ink that flowed out of UFC before it finally turned the corner.”
You can listen to the show below. Thanks to Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions.
