The UFC’s 7-year, $1.5 billion partnership with ESPN is coming to an end later this year, with the deal negotiation window already closed on 15 April 2025. There’s reportedly a race to get hold of the promotion’s broadcasting rights, with Dana White reportedly set to negotiate with giants like Amazon and Netflix. While the MMA community is talking about the current state of their broadcasting deal, the head honcho has come out to talk about the deal they had with the FOX network. And guess what? WWE’s former owner, Vince McMahon, played a vital part in it.

For a while during the early 2010s, there was a rivalry between the UFC and the WWE. This is pretty surprising given that both promotions offer different forms of combat sports. During that time, the UFC CEO and the top brass were about to secure a broadcast deal with another network. Not FOX, but with the NBC network! The reason the 55-year-old wanted NBC was that they were willing to let ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ reality series be aired on the USA Network. However, White had a roadblock in the form of McMahon, who had the power to prohibit other combat sports from getting featured on the USA Network, which was also home to WWE’s premium weekly episodic offering, Monday Night Raw.

And recently, White revealed that he couldn’t believe everything had to go through the former WWE owner. “I’m on the one-yard line, about to get a deal done with NBC. And one of my big deal points was that ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ had to be on USA [network]. We’re literally in New York for days, hammering it out with all the executives over there. And finally, they come back and say, ‘Alright, we’ll do it with The Ultimate Fighter on USA,” Dana White told Stephanie McMahon (Vince’s daughter) on her show, ‘What Your Story?’

“So the next day we come back and we’re about to sign a deal and do all the stuff. And we can’t believe this, we didn’t know this, we just found out Vince McMahon has the right to determine whether another combat sport could come on to USA. And I’m like, ‘What? How is that even f—ing possible?”

To get the deal done, White and his team flew all the way to WWE’s headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut to convince Vince McMahon to give him the green light. But guess what? It didn’t work, and the UFC CEO not only lost the NBC deal but also a chance to acquire the G4 network, which was centered around video games and geek culture.

“We fly out, we go to the offices. We go in with your father [and] sit down. And we laid it out to him. Tell him the story. He’s like, ‘Yeah. I don’t want you on the network.’ We’re like, ‘Why?’ [McMahon responded], ‘Just don’t want it,'” Dana White further stated. “So that blew up the whole NBC deal, and we were actually going to buy G4… So then we pick up the phone. We call Eric Shanks and fly out to L.A. [and] do the FOX deal. The rest is history.”

The G4 network, unfortunately, ceased operations in 2014, which White claimed could have put the UFC to bed. However, they signed a 7-year deal with FOX in 2011, which worked out very well for the promotion. And although G4 was relaunched in November 2021, the FOX deal helped take UFC to new heights. “You don’t know what we would have done or how it would have played out, but we believe that if we’d have bought G4, it would have killed us,” the 55-year-old added.

For many people, it would appear that McMahon may not have the best of opinions about Dana White. Given that he blocked his entry into the USA Network. However, that does not appear to be the truth, since he’s had nothing but praise for the UFC CEO.

Vince McMahon claims to have a great relationship with Dana White

WWE and the UFC made history when they decided to join in and work under the ownership of the TKO Group Holdings. It was a move that nobody expected! The merging of professional wrestling and mixed martial arts to form one single company. After the merger was completed in 2023, Vince McMahon put an end to the longtime notion of him and Dana White not looking eye to eye to reveal that he never had any issues with the UFC CEO.

“Dana and I get along very, very well. He’s really a good guy,” Vince McMahon told ‘MMA Junkie’, as he was caught hold of by the media while being accompanied by WWE Hall of Famer, the Undertaker at the Tyson Fury vs Francis Ngannou boxing match in Saudi Arabia. “We’re good partners and good businessmen. When you’re good businessmen, you get along.”

McMahon even denied giving cheap WrestleMania seats to Dana White, which was something that the UFC CEO once mentioned. But, at the end of the day, what do you think about the UFC missing out on the NBC deal? Drop your comments below.