Executive Says TKO Group Is Aiming For Every WWE Fan To Be A Fan Of UFC And Vice Versa

With the official unveiling of the TKO Group at the New York Stock Exchange on September 12, WWE and UFC are now part of the same company, with TKO controlling the biggest ‘sports entertainment’ and combat sports league in the world.

In a write-up of the merger in ESPN, UFC Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Lawrence Epstein revealed what a major aim of TKO Group is:

"Where we want to get is where every UFC fan is a WWE fan and every WWE fan is a UFC fan,” said Epstein.

Whilst there is some crossover between the two worlds, they are still two very distinct properties and indeed distinct takes on combat sport. Due to this, UFC CEO Dana White doesn’t see this happening, saying the following at a press conference for his Contender Series on ESPN+:

“Lawrence (Epstein), I love you. One of the dumbest statements of all-time (he made about getting to a point where every UFC fan is a WWE fan & vice versa). Yeah, I don’t know why he said that. I don’t even know what to say to that. No. There’s some crossover. Some people like WWE, some people like UFC, some people like both. I don’t think there’s ever gonna be a day where we turn every UFC fan into a WWE fan or every WWE fan — what’s beautiful about the synergy between these two fan bases is they are very completely opposite. There’s very little crossover and again, maybe he was misquoted. I hope that’s the case because I could not disagree with him more,” said White.

H/T: POST Wrestling