In September 2023, the merger between WWE and UFC finalized and subsequently launched the creation of TKO Group Holdings. Years before that, though, WWE entertained the possibility of buying UFC altogether.
In an interview with POST Wrestling, former WWE co-President George Barrios revealed that, around 2018 or 2019, he voiced the idea of WWE purchasing UFC to then-WWE CEO Vince McMahon.
“Once we had hit escape velocity and we were a rocket ship, I had talked to Vince. I’m like, ‘Look, the next big stage.’ We’re going to keep growing. We’ve got an amazing business. There’s more to do, but there’s the opportunity to either buy someone,” Barrios said.
“We had talked about UFC, another business. Buy someone and we run a bigger thing because, I won’t bore you with it, but we think that’s more valuable. We think actually, and I rarely say this, but one plus one is more than two. So we had talked about that,” Barrios added. “And by the way, in the case of UFC, I’d always said ‘Look we have a better management team than they do so we should probably run that.’ That was back in ’18, ’19.”
At the time, Dana White led Ultimate Fighting Championship as its President. Following the UFC-WWE merger, White was appointed the UFC CEO as well. In WWE, Nick Khan now serves as the President, while Paul “Triple H” Levesque has remained in the role as Chief Content Officer since 2022.
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