Chael Sonnen: 'Vince McMahon tried to sabotage the UFC'
Vince McMahon once tried to sabotage his rivals at the UFC in the early days of Spike TV.
On Friday, during an episode of his podcast You’re Welcome, Bellator MMA’s newest signee, Chael Sonnen broke down a long winded story involving the WWE chairman Vince McMahon’s failed attempt to sabotage his rivals at the UFC in the early days of Spike TV.
This may come as a surprise to some as UFC President Dana White has never hidden the fact he admires and respects his professional wrestling counterpart.
“Dana White really admires Vince,” explained Sonnen. “He’s always liked Vince, he doesn’t always say that publicly. He’ll simply say, ‘Well I got a lot of respect for him’ and that’s where he’ll end it. But, he really does admire him and the WWE business model is what the UFC copied. The way the royalties work, the backends work, the locker room bonuses, if you will, all the negotiations. Just the way it works, it’s very close to the WWE’s model and [former UFC owner] Lorenzo Fertitta came out as much as to say, ‘Look we studied everybody from the Yankees on down, it’s the WWE that we decided to model ourself around.”
White, along with Fertitta, famously took over the UFC after purchasing the Las Vegas fight promotion fro a mere $2 million. Flash forward to 2016 and the UFC is being sold to WME-IMG for $4 billion.
But initially, the UFC struggled to stay afloat as the idea of cutting their losses seemed inevitable to White and Fertitta. That was until 2005, when they debuted show The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV, which was essentially a last ditch effort to draw interest in the sport of mixed martial arts. The show would go onto earning stellar ratings while successfully saving the promtion.
But according to Sonnen, McMahon tried to put a kibosh on the entire project.
While his threats inevitably didn’t work, McMahon would continue his attempted to undermine his new rivals, this time taking aim at one their more high profile employees directly.
If Sonnen’s is indeed accurate, the hundreds of fighters on the UFC’ roster should send a thank you note to the WWE owner for the increase in pay.
More from FanSided
This article originally appeared on 
