During a recent episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff revealed that he once turned down an opportunity to buy the UFC. Here’s what he had to say:
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.
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.
The Fertitta’s, when they bought it, people didn’t realize how many 10s of millions of dollars the Fertitta’s lost before it turned around. There was probably over a hundred million dollars of red ink that flowed out of UFC before it finally turned the corner. It wouldn’t have turned the corner had it not been for [The Ultimate Fighter] on Spike. That was the golden ticket, the lottery ticket, that turned things around.
You can listen HERE.
Credit: 83 Weeks. H/T WrestlingInc.