Vince McMahon, Nick Khan, & Dana White on WWE’s Sale to Endeavor & New Merged Company

As noted before, WWE announced earlier today that they have entered an agreement to sell their company to Endeavor, who is the parent company of UFC. As part of the terms of the deal, WWE and UFC will be merging into a new company valued at over $21 billion.

In an interview with the CNBC Squawk on the Street show, WWE Executive Chairman Vince McMahon gave his thoughts on why he felt it was the right time to sell the company and Endeavor as his choice for WWE’s new owner.

“This is the biggest thing Ari Emanuel and Vince McMahon have ever done. Combing forces like this, there’s nothing like this, there’s never been anything like this. They’re going to be talking about this for a long time …

Sure there were (other suitors), but the synergies. Everyone was very interested in, and I appreciate that, but the synergy that Ari brings, totally different than everyone else …

It’s the right time. It’s the right time to do the right thing. It’s been the next evolution of WWE. I could probably do what Ari does right now with UFC, it’d take me 10 years. In that time, he’ll be 10 years ahead of me. It makes all the sense in the world for all the synergies we have to extract all the value we can out of the marketplace.”

On the topic of the decision to keep Vince McMahon in an executive leadership role in this new merged company, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel stated:

“I would have bodyslammed him if he thought he thought he was going to leave. Here’s a man who has seen around the corner at every beat over the last 40 years of this business and has a vision of this business way before a lot of people see it. Him now being able to utilize what we’ve built in our flywheel, I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I have Vince McMahon, a visionary that sees around the corner, I have Dana White and what we’ve built. That’s pretty unstoppable.”

McMahon gave his thoughts on how hard Emanuel had pushed for him to remain on WWE’s Board of Directors.

“Not that much. I love what I do. I love building WWE. All my life, it’s my passion. To have an opportunity to have it grow like this from an exponential standpoint. It can’t be better than that.”

On the topic of if he will be getting involved with the creative direction of WWE, McMahon stated:

“Yes and no. On a higher level, yes. In the weeds, which I always loved to get in the weeds in the past, no. Can’t do that.”

On the topic of his legacy in wrestling and the sexual harassment allegations and hush money payment scandal against him, McMahon stated:

“I’ve made mistakes, obviously, personally and professionally through my 50-year career. I’ve owned up to every single one of them and then moved on. I’m not sure of the legacy stuff. I’m not going to write it. I don’t know. I want to say, as someone who had an extraordinary amount of fun, great passion for what they did and wound up with the biggest deal he’s ever done in his life.”

McMahon also stated that WWE would have still gone through a sale process even had the scandal against him not taken place last year.

“Absolutely. It makes sense. Nothing has ever happened like this before. I’m always looking what’s best for our stockholders and our company. This is the best thing that has happened in a long time. All the WrestleManias combined doesn’t equal to the magnitude we will do together.”

In an interview with Axios, WWE CEO Nick Khan stated that WWE’s current deal with the Saudi Arabian government to hold events in their country will be remaining intact as part of WWE’s sale deal to Endeavor.

“[O]ur relationship with The Kingdom is a terrific partnership for which we’re appreciative of, and you know, nothing in terms of anyone else’s prior experience will affect that. We think that we’ve delivered the product in the way that the Kingdom wanted it delivered. We have a multiple year agreement with them in place. We’re excited to do a show — we’ll be back there May 27 for a big premium live event.”

Khan also stated that he would not rule out the idea of a combined streaming deal with UFC for their next streaming media rights deal.

Khan also stated that would not rule out the possibility of a wave of layoffs taking place within the near future in both WWE and UFC as part of the aftermath of a WWE and UFC merger.

“We’re not sure. An integration team is going to be put into place between both companies in short order, and we’ll know — we’ll have a lot more in the next week or two.”

Following the announcement of WWE’s sale to Endeavor, UFC President Dana White issued an official statement about the upcoming merger of WWE and UFC into a new company.

“This company has been on fire for the last seven years and now that we will be adding WWE to the portfolio, I am excited to take this to another level. Vince is a savage in the wrestling space, Ari is a beast at what he does, and then add what we at UFC bring to the table and there is no limit to what this company can accomplish in the next five years.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2