In an interview on CNBC’s Squawk On The Street, Vince McMahon discussed the decision to sell the WWE to Endeavor, who plan to merge the company with the UFC into a new company.

“This is the biggest thing Ari Emanuel and Vince McMahon have ever done, combining forces like this, there’s nothing like this and there’s never been anything like this, they’re going to be talking about this for a long time. Sure there were others, but the synergies, everyone was very interested in and I appreciate that, but the synergy that Ari brings is totally different from everyone else. It’s the right time, it’s the right time to do the right thing, it’s been the next evolution of the WWE. I could probably do what Ari does right now with UFC, it’d take me 10 years, in that time he’ll be 10 years ahead of me, it makes all the sense in the world for all the synergies we have to extract all the value we can out of the marketplace.”

Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel also commented on the news and the decision to keep Vince McMahon on board with the new company.

“I would have bodyslammed him if he thought that he was going to leave, here’s a man who has seen around the corner at every beat over the last 40 years of this business and has a vision of this business way before a lot of people see it. Him now being able to utilize what we’ve built in our flywheel, I’m the luckiest guy in the world, I have Vince McMahon, a visionary that sees around the corner, I have Dana White and what we’ve built, that’s pretty unstoppable. I wasn’t going to let him, we’ve had a relationship for 23 years, there’s a trust, a friendship. When you’re going into business and going forward, that’s important, I’m glad he chose us, because it was a very competitive situation. For us, it’s an honor and we’re so lucky because of his vision of where the business is and where it’s going.”