Chael Sonnen has been making quite some raves on his podcast 'You're Welcome.' Sonnen recently had a chat with WWE writer John Piermarini wherein he revealed a juicy story of him and the WWE.
According to Sonnen, he was offered by Vince McMahon to a multi-million dollar contract to jump ship from the UFC to professional wrestling.
He said "Here's the nuts and bolts of it: I was offered $5 million by [WWE promoter] 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 [WWE], '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."
Sonnen failed three drug tests in his career. The second and third, in 2014 under the Nevada Athletic Commission, led to a two-year suspension from MMA and his firing from UFC and Fox Sports, where he was an analyst.
Sonnen added "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 also talked about how the current UFC President Dana White negotiates. He adds "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."
Sonnen believes that UFC acts much more fair compared to how the market would allow it.
He adds "the UFC, on a regular basis, negotiates against themselves. 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."
