Vince McMahon handed major new role in WWE-UFC merger as veto powers revealed

Vince McMahon officially has a new role after WWE and UFC merged into TKO Group Holdings on Tuesday.

The 78-year-old founded Titan Sports in 1979 and bought WWE from his father through the company three years later, and had been a controlling shareholder of WWE ever since that date.

But the McMahon era, certainly in terms of being a majority shareholder, ended on Tuesday when the merger between UFC and WWE was completed.

Parent company Endeavor now owns a majority 51 per cent stake in TKO, with McMahon holding 34 per cent. Altogether, WWE shareholders hold 49 per cent of all shares.

While little is expected to change immediately in terms of the WWE product - Paul 'Triple H' Levesque remains as head of creative - there have been changes at executive level.

McMahon is now the Executive Chairman of TKO, and one of five WWE representatives on an 11-strong board. Nick Khan, meanwhile, is now the WWE President, in a similar role to the one Dana White will fulfil on the UFC side.

According to TJR Wrestling, McMahon is believed to hold veto power in his new role, which could potentially be used in UFC decision making.

However, it is added that it would be 'very surprising' if McMahon used his veto power in relation to UFC.

For the first time since his acquisition of WWE, though, McMahon will have someone else above him in the political hierarchy, with Ari Emanuel the CEO of Endeavor and TKO Group Holdings.

According to Khan, the 78-year-old started to give consideration to a partnership between Endeavor and WWE when he attended a UFC event in July.

He told ESPN: "It's not really his thing to go to basketball games, football games - it's just not what he does.

"When he decided, 'Yeah, I want to go,' ... and when he went, that's when I believe he started thinking about it, and it all started to manifest when we engaged in a fulsome process starting this past January."