UFC President Dana White recently spoke with Triggered on a number of topics including how Vince McMahon once prevented them from striking a deal with NBC.
White said, “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 f***ing 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.”
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
