Chael Sonnen recently retired from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), but did you know that he was offered a spot to join the ranks of WWE stars?
In a report by Yahoo! Sports, Sonnen shared on his new podcast "You're Welcome" that Vince McMahon, head of World Wrestling Entertainment, offered him five million dollars to leave the Octagon and move to his organization.
Sonnen said, "Here's the nuts and bolts of it," he continued in the same Yahoo! Sports report, "I was offered $5 million Vince McMahon...Now, I was still under contract with the UFC and I never took this to Dana. I handled it on my own. I told them 'No' and that was the end of that. I never told Dana White this story, but here's why I didn't tell him. I knew if I called Dana and said, 'I've got a $5 million offer from Vince McMahon,' Dana would have matched it."
He added in an article by Fansided.com that he was concerned that his loyalty to the UFC would be questioned, considering that he was still under contract at the time of the alleged offer.
Chael said, "Dana would have come close and now all of a sudden I'm not a loyal employee. I'm not loyal to the UFC. I'm shopping them and I'm being loyal to myself. That's business. That's how that works and I don't think anyone would have had hard feelings but I didn't see myself that way."
He continued in the same Fansided report, "That something really interesting about Dana. If you want to play 'cutthroat business,' he will play, but if you want to relax and just let him take care of things you're going to be a lot better off.
"If you go in there and try to negotiate, he'll negotiate and he'll do it like a regular business deal. If you play hard ball a lot of times you'll win. A lot of times you will win. Dana likes to say, 'Yes.' However, if a show does exceptionally well you will be bound to what you went in there and fought him for."
He concluded in a report by MMA Fighting, "The UFC, on a regular basis, negotiates against themselves," said Sonnen. "Dana White will sit down at the negotiating table and he's negotiating against himself, against the old contract he's already got with a guy. There's no nobody else coming in and bidding on him and he's still giving guys raises."