The UFC and WWE merger became official on Tuesday morning with the launch of TKO Group Holdings.
During a recent appearance on “The Bill Simmons Podcast,” WWE President Nick Khan discussed the possibility of holding an ‘All-Star TKO weekend’, which would include SmackDown on Friday, UFC on Saturday, and a WWE pay-per-view event on Sunday. He said,
“The conversations are just beginning now. Everybody wanted to make sure that we got all the regulatory approvals in place. Department of Justice approval, SEC approval, a couple of international approvals that we needed and obviously, we got all of those. The conversations are happening now. Yes, what everyone envisions is, can you set up an all-star TKO weekend where SmackDown goes on Friday, UFC on Saturday with pay-per-view, and WWE goes with a premium live event on Sunday. Can you do that from the same city? Certainly, a lot of cost efficiencies there in terms of production, but a lot of revenue efficiencies in terms of upside there as well. Certainly, the fighters and WWE superstars stay separate. Could you have a Ronda Rousey or Brock Lesnar come along who can cross from one to the other? Sure, but that’s a once-in-a-decade type of thing. In terms of production, [UFC Exec VP/Operations & Production] Craig Borsari and [WWE Line Producer] Kevin Dunn, they’ve had a number of conversations on those efficiencies, how it might look, how it might work. Hopefully, we have some news on that in a couple of months.”
Khan also said that TKO Group is considering the possibility of keeping the brands separate to prevent one from hurting the business of another. He said,
“Ideally, what we like, especially if you look at the international expansion of WWE’s premium live events and UFC’s already expansion, you could see a lot of events of ‘WWE is going at 3pm eastern from an international location, UFC is going at 8 eastern domestically,’ or the opposite of that. We like that too because you have two gates, two merchandise, in theory, if you get a government subsidy for the international or domestic show, you have that and boom, both events are right there. By planning in advance, I don’t believe we’ll trip over each other in any way.”
