Vince McMahon built his empire on the back of crushing smaller wrestling shows in order to establish his monopoly on the business. While the WWE is the biggest wrestling program in the world, it is not competition free when it comes to combat sports. The UFC is one of the most watched fight promotion in the world. However, despite the fact that the two cater to completely different fan bases, this did not stop WWE from trying to stick it to Dana White.
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The WWE once tried to lure one of UFC’s stars on their flagship Monday Night RAW program. Back in 2010, when the UFC was still on its way up, the WWE devised a plan to kick down on the show. However, nothing came of it.
WWE offered UFC star $1 Million to appear on RAW with UFC title and screw over Dana White
Former UFC star Chael Sonnen was booked to face Anderson Silva for the Middleweight Championship at UFC 117 on August 7th, 2010. Before his match, he was approached by WWE, who invited him to their Monday Night programming.
He was told that if he won the title from Silva, they would offer him $1 Million to bring it to their show. Although, he was told not to inform Dana White because this was their way of sticking up to him.
Sonnen recalled the conversation during his appearance on the MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani. He said:
“I was just getting ready to fight Anderson Silva. They said if you beat Anderson and you show up on Raw with the belt, we’ll give you a million dollars, but you can’t tell Dana. The million dollars is to stick it in Dana’s a**.”
Sonnen didn’t understand how that would be a problem to Dana White but he was open to it.
“I would’ve done it. I would’ve taken the belt. I would’ve been on Raw, I just don’t understand how Dana would have any problem with that. I never understood that part.”
Chael tells story of being offered $1M by WWE if he would have beaten Anderson Silva at UFC 117 and shown up on Raw on Monday with the UFC belt. WWE said the condition was he couldn’t tell Dana.#TheMMAHour pic.twitter.com/G5ZvxfASuG
— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) February 27, 2023
Chael Sonnen was Conor McGregor before McGregor
During the same interview, Sonnen revealed that he was told by the WWE that he was too old to bring in. They were looking for 20-year-olds and Sonnen was 33 at the time. However, he was told that it was not because of his physicality but psychology, which they believed would be hard to teach,
“They said, ‘We could teach you to wrestle in 6 months but to learn the psychology.’ And that’s the part that offended me. I am a master of psychology,” Sonen said.
UFC fans are aware of Sonnen’s promo skills. How good he actually was at fighting is often overlooked because of how good of a talker he was. In fact, many people believe that he was the prototype for the character Conor McGregor rose to become during UFC’s heights.
Unfortunately, we never really got to see a competitive one-on-one on the microphone between the two. By the time the Irishman rose to megastardom, Sonnen was long retired.
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