Revealed: When Vince McMahon Started Thinking About Selling WWE

Vince McMahon's majority ownership of WWE came to an end on Tuesday, September 12 as the merger between WWE and UFC was completed to create TKO Group Holdings. TKO was floated on the New York Stock Exchange at 9 am ET on Tuesday and the company finished the first day of trading at $103.05. 

The sale of WWE came about after Vince McMahon forced his way back into the company in January 2023, with a restructured board of directors electing him as Executive Chairman. McMahon then put WWE up for sale and a term sheet with Endeavor (the parent company of UFC) was signed on April 1. Plans for the UFC-WWE merger were announced on April 3 on the morning after WrestleMania 39. 

McMahon had seemingly been planning to sell WWE for months before his return to the company. Nick Khan told ESPN that he believes McMahon really started thinking about Endeavor as a partner for WWE when Vince, Khan, Stephanie McMahon, and Triple H attended UFC 276 in July 2022. 

"It's not really his thing to go to basketball games, football games -- it's just not what he does. When he decided, 'Yeah, I want to go,' ... and when he went, that's when I believe he started thinking about it, and it all started to manifest when we engaged in a fulsome process starting this past January," Khan stated.

McMahon resigned as WWE CEO and Chairman only a few weeks after UFC 276 amid a sexual misconduct and hush money scandal in which it is alleged that McMahon paid $14.6 million to suppress allegations of sexual misconduct and infidelity. McMahon paid a further $5 million to the Donald Trump Foundation in connection with Trump's WWE TV appearances in 2007 and 2009.

The funds were not declared in WWE's annual accounts which prompted an investigation into the unrecorded expenses from the United States Government. That investigation remains ongoing.