When the UFC and WWE merged under the TKO Group banner in September 2023, not many knew exactly what to expect — including Dana White. 

It was confirmed last year that the two sports entertainment entities were to combine as part of a majority-owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings in a historic deal which linked the companies under a single umbrella, leading to immediate speculation as to what impact — if any — this might have on each businesses product.

So far at least, the impact has been minimal from a customer-facing perspective: some UFC fighters have appeared at WWE events, while a WWE event was also held inside the UFC’s Apex facility outside of Las Vegas.

And in a recent interview with the Sports Business Journal, as noted by Bloody Elbow, UFC boss Dana White admitted that he was initially sceptical of the deal.

“Yeah, since we kicked off the whole TKO thing, it’s been great,” White said. “The synergies are basically between I’d say more, the sponsorship and production, how we figured out with both companies to streamline some of the expenses we had when we were separate.

“You can see the stock in the last three days has gone up like, 10 or $11, so it’s on fire right now, it’s been a great experience. I wasn’t very excited about going into a public company, it doesn’t seem very fun to me, but it’s been alright. I do what I do, they do what they do over in the WWE.”

The TKO Group share price is $135.77 at the time of writing, up from around $115 this time last month.

Furthermore, White said that the partnership ended what was in effect a longstanding rivalry between the two companies: “We have a good working relationship between us and the WWE, which we did not have before TKO.”