Major Former WWE Name Turned Down Chance To Buy UFC

Former WCW Executive and WWE Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff has revealed that he turned down the opportunity to purchase the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) several years ago.

While speaking to Conrad Thompson on his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff revealed that he turned down the chance to buy UFC in 1993 because he didn’t think it would be able to rival professional wrestling:

“Nobody looked at it as competition – it was a tough man contest. Not taking anything away from people involved in it, but it was being promoted as a tough man type. It wasn’t being promoted the way it was being promoted today. I don’t think anybody looked at it as a threat or competition. As a fan, I was curious about it but not concerned about it.”

Knowing what he knows now about how successful UFC would go on to become, Bischoff unsurprisingly noted that he regrets not buying the company nearly thirty years ago:

“If we’d have known then what we know now, I’d own it. I was offered to buy it at one point for 2 million dollars and I didn’t bother to return the phone call.”

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Thanks to Inside The Ropes for the transcription.

• eric bischoff
• WCW
• ufc
• wwe

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