Former WWE CEO Vince McMahon Unveils Surprising Reasons for Skipping UFC Buyout in Early 2000s

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has emerged as one of combat sport's biggest events. After the WWE , UFC is a brand which has attracted a lot of fanfare where two fighters give their all to make their name in the game. However, it wasn't a good time for the MMA promotion in the Early 2000s as they were having major financial issues. That is when the possibility of taking over UFC was presented to Shane McMahon, who kept it in front of his father, Vince McMahon. But the former WWE Kingpin gave a surprising reason on why he passed upon the grand opportunity.

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Shane McMahon Reveals He Urged His Father to Buy UFC, Vince McMahon Reveals Shocking Reason to Deny Proposal

In Netflix's 'Mr. McMahon' Documentary Series, Vince McMahon was asked about the time when his son Shane came up with the idea of buying out UFC. The MMA promotion was leaking out in terms of money they were put up for sale. Shane McMahon was very much on board with the idea and he presented it to his father, former WWE CEO Vince McMahon. Shane believes that it would grow as it was ideally made for them and they had an entire production, events and merchandise team for the same. In terms of Shane, it was simply plug-and-play and ready to go.

“At the time, the UFC, they got in some financial problems and came to us and said ‘Would you like to purchase the UFC?’. I go this is cool.

“I said ‘Dad, let’s just go for this one.’ I thought we could really grow that brand because it’s tailor-made for what we do. We have a production team, we have a live events team, we had a merchandising team, we have all of it just ready to go. So to me it was plug and play,” Shane McMahon revealed in the Netflix documentary series.

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However, Vince McMahon did not like the idea as it was against their business model. Vinny Mac believed that WWE was more inclined towards the show business and entertainment factor, while the UFC was more of a sport-based output.

“When it was presented in terms of buying UFC, I didn’t like that business model. Because our business model, you can create characters much like Disney or someone else, and we can use them forever.

“As opposed to a boxer/UFC [fighter], once you’re beat, once you’re hurt or something, your career’s over. We’re in show business. That’s a sport,” Vince McMahon explained.