As things presently stand, Vince McMahon and Dana White are on the same team, as they both cash checks from Ari Emanuel's Endeavor and theoretically should be working together whenever it's appropriate to get their shared efforts over, but there was a time in the not-to-distant past when the then-WWE CEO wanted nothing more than for UFC to fail… or at least not be as popular as his own product.

No, on paper, the actual crossover between WWE and UFC is kind of nebulous, as it's unclear just how many fans of one product watch the other, but hey, as White noted in an interview with Triggered, for a time, McMahon pretty much-viewed everyone as competition and was willing to fight tooth and nail to keep his product on top, even if it was very much a one-way battle.

“It's been an interesting relationship with Vince McMahon. I never saw Vince as competition, but I'm thinking Vince, in his heyday, he saw everyone as competition. He was one of those guys that would f**king stick it to me, just to do it. We were about to do a deal with NBC, and it ends up, we get to the one-yard line, and Vince has the final say of who can go on USA Network and who can't if you're a combat sport. Lorenzo [Lorenzo Fertitta] and I flew out to Connecticut, sat down with him, we do all the small talk, ‘We're doing a deal with NBC.' Vince sits back like Vince sits. ‘We're about to do this deal, we're about to have fights on NBC and everything else, but you need to sign off on it.' Vince says, ‘Yeah, I'm not going to do that.' We're like, ‘Why?' ‘Eh, I'm just not interested in it. I don't like the idea of you guys being on USA Network,'” Dana White said via Fightful.

“The whole deal blows up. At the end of the day, it all worked out better, we ended up on FOX. That's just one of ten times where Vince did it. Now, Vince and I are in business together, and Vince couldn't be a better partner now. Now, Vince has been an incredible partner. Literally keeps me in the loop with everything going on, making sure I'm cool with decisions that could affect the UFC.”

Why did Mr. McMahon believe ECW was such a threat to WWE? Would he have been cool with the company landing on USA Network if they were aligned but fought against it because he wasn't directly making money off of the deal, even if theoretically there could have been a crossover between the two fanbases, who would inevitably see ads for the other during their preferred show? Either way, it's clear White is happy to have McMahon as a partner instead of a foe, as it's one less person in power gunning for his company.

Ric Flair offered Woooo! to Vince McMahon, WWE, before AEW deal.

Speaking of folks attempting to get in or out of business with Vince McMahon, after decades in the WWE mix, Ric Flair has officially jumped ship from his long-time home to AEW, where he has signed a two-year deal with the promotion both as a performer and for his company Wooo! Energy Drinks.

While this decision has been somewhat contentious among fans, and by contentious, I mean a borderline PR disaster, if it wasn't for Vince McMahon, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, and the rest of the WWE Universe, it might have never happened, as the “Nature Boy” revealed to ESPN that he actually offered up his services to WWE before taking his on and off-screen talents to AEW.

“Here we are today, marching on, making headway, going national with AEW,” Ric Flair told ESPN. “Out of courtesy, we ran it by WWE, and they have so much going on, it's no fault of anybody. With the merger and so much going on, they moved past it. It was no disrespect to us, they just weren't doing anything at the time. I ran it by Tony Khan, Tony called me, I put Chad [business partner Chad Bronstein] on the phone, and here we are.”

Considering Fastlane was very publically sponsored by C4, it's clear WWE isn't opposed to making big sponsorship deals with beverage companies, especially if they are willing to pay up in a big way. Passing on Flair both on and off the screen, in turn, left the door open to AEW, which may or may not prove to be a shrewd business decision, depending on how the next two years shake out.