UFC president Dana White spoke recently John McAuley for thenational.ae and made a bold, obvious claim.
“The shows that we bring here, this is the only international destination for fights,” said White. “So all the biggest and the baddest fights coming up that we have are going to be here. If you look at our roster of champions, they're from all over the world. So the biggest, baddest fights over the next God knows how long are going to be here in Abu Dhabi. That's why I'm saying Abu Dhabi is going to be looked at as the new fight capital of the world. It used to be Las Vegas. It definitely isn't Las Vegas right now.”
“We're talking about Israel Adesanya versus Paulo Costa, that fight happening. Weili Zhang versus Rose Namajunas is a possibility. All the massive, big fights with literally the champion versus the No 1 contender are all looking like Fight Island Abu Dhabi.”
“[Khabib Nurmagomedov] is undefeated; he's achieved everything; he has tons of money. But that's always a factor in this business. Conor McGregor, look at what he's accomplished. Look at what a huge superstar he is. These guys retire, it happens and it's never something that I worry about. It's just part of the business.
“There will never be another Khabib like Khabib, there will never be another Conor like Conor. But there will be other stars and it's kind of the fun part of this journey. ... Who would have thought that this massive superstar would come out of Ireland? Who would have thought that we would have had this Muslim champion who's undefeated, that would become so beloved by Muslims all over the world?
“And the list goes on and on of these type of people that we've had. GSP up in Canada. When he ruled the world and we'd go up to Canada, it would be so much fun. It's part of the journey of this business and it's what makes it so fun.”
“I've always been waiting in my career for that destination fight. And when I say that, like when we opened up Toronto for the first time, it was such a big deal. And it was a massive event. Our first event at Madison Square Garden; my first fight in London was at Royal Albert Hall. So I did all the venue type fights, the big venues, our first time in there breaking records.
“[Fight Island] was our Thrilla in Manila, Rumble in the Jungle. Where the place was as big or bigger of a star as everybody that was fighting on the card. So we made history here.
“That Octagon on the beach should sit there forever; that should be something that fight fans come and see forever. We're talking about doing International Fight Week here now on Fight Island and having all these different events here the week of the fight. And we're thinking about all these different things now that we can do, that would be a yearly event.
“I know for a fact that I've never done anything harder than this. I don't know if there'll ever be anything that we've accomplished in almost 20 years of doing this that was bigger than what we've done here.”