Randy Couture Says Dana White and Vince McMahon Use Similar Hiring Models

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, Randy Couture spoke about how WWE and UFC both go after legitimate amateur wrestlers and how Vince McMahon and Dana White use similar approaches to hiring.

He said: “Back in the day, when I was a kid, Jimmy Snuka, guys like that, I watched as a kid, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t real, and I started getting into real wrestling, collegiate wrestling and Olympic wrestling. And my interest in the pro wrestling scene kind of went away. That’s just how the progression went for me, and once I was heavily immersed in collegiate wrestling, scholastic wrestling and Olympic wrestling, I really kind of lost the luster for the pro wrestling thing. It just wasn’t my deal. Some guys have gone the other way. Look at Kurt Angle, look at the Steiner brothers, they had all real, genuine amateur wrestling careers and then jumped into pro wrestling as a way to make a living. For a lot of us amateur wrestlers, there were no professional outlets to be a professional athlete or to continue to make a living using the skills that we’d spend most of our lives developing.

So pro wrestling was certainly an option for some of those guys. Brock Lesnar obviously came from a NCAA Championship in Minnesota and then went into pro wrestling, and then dabbled in mixed martial arts as well. There is definitely some some crossover. I think if you look at the model that Dana White and the UFC is using, it’s absolutely the Vince McMahon pro wrestling model. I’ve never done any the training. It’s never been something that I was terribly interested in. Obviously, we saw Ronda Rousey make that transition from MMA, when things weren’t going so well for her in MMA, and she jumped over into WWE. They’ve never approached me about being involved, and honestly, I don’t think it’s something I would have been that interested in.“