Dana White and Vince McMahon work together now, but they were once on opposite sides of the combat sports world.
As the heads of UFC and WWE, respectively, McMahon and White were often at odds over the years. In the aftermath of Endeavor’s transaction agreement with WWE, White and McMahon are both part of TKO. McMahon serves as the Executive Chairman of TKO Group, while White is the CEO of UFC.
Speaking on Triggered, Dana White discussed his relationship with Vince McMahon. He claimed that McMahon once prevented UFC from getting a deal with NBC. (H/t Jeremy Lambert of Fightful for the transcription).
“It’s been an interesting relationship with Vince McMahon,” Dana White said. “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 f**king 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.”
The timeline of White’s claim is unclear. UFC has been on FOX since they signed a seven-year agreement in 2011.
Dana White went on to state that McMahon has been an “incredible partner” since they started working together.
Vince McMahon previously discussed his relationship with Dana White. Check out his comments here.
