The UFC 298 main event between Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and Ilia Topuria saw plenty of talk before – and after – the bell. Unfortunately for Volkanovksi, who many consider the featherweight GOAT (greatest of all time), he was knocked out in the second round, just a few months after his rematch against Islam Makhachev at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi, where he, too, got knocked out with a head kick.
In a recent YouTube interview with Tucker Carlon, UFC President Dana White was asked about the UAE and was quick to give a sparkling review.
“You’ve talked up Abu Dhabi, this little emirate on the Arabian Gulf, for a very long time,” Carlson asked. “Why Abu Dhabi?”
“I love everything about it,” White exclaimed vehemently. “These guys are forward thinkers, open-minded. The infrastructure they have built in that incredible city…and I tell people every time: if you have never been to a fight in Abu Dhabi, you have to come experience this place. When Covid hit, these guys were light years ahead of everyone else when it came to testing, lockdowns, and that’s where we set up fight island and managed to run through covid and stay alive. They are so progressive and so brilliant.”
“If you have never been to a fight in Abu Dhabi, you have to come experience this place”
Dana White
For those who weren’t already aware, when the world shut down during the Covid lockdown, sports, entertainment, and any public activity took a massive hit, except for the UFC, thanks to Abu Dhabi’s forward thinking and understanding that now, more than ever, do people need entertainment, nonetheless a physical outlet, and thus was the birth of Abu Dhabi’s Fight Island. And being even more sympathetic to its American fanbase, Abu Dhabi streamed the events on US Primetime hours rather than local time, with the events thereby taking place at 2:00 a.m. Gulf Standard Time.
“They don’t have a crime problem in Abu Dhabi?” Carlson joked.
“They deal with crime the way crime should be dealt with,” White said. “I have never felt safer in my life than when I was in the UAE.” Perhaps Los Angeles can learn a thing or two from the UAE when it comes to dealing with crime. “It’s been a cool thing for me to create the relationship I’ve created with everyone out there. I value it very much, and these people will be my close friends until the day I die.”
“And as for the royal family out there,” White began. “They are some of the most brilliant, humble, amazing human beings you could possibly meet. I love those people. And I’m proud to call them very very close friends of mine.
“I agree,” Carlson added. “They are very humble and very forward-thinking.”
For the moment, there are no immediate dates set up for when the UFC will return to Abu Dhabi, as the organisation is working hard on setting up its first-ever event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which appears to be the UAE’s only real competitor for the title of ‘Fight Capital of the World.’
And next weekend, February 24, 2024, the first mega MMA event of the year, Bellator vs PFL, will take place in Riyadh, beating the UFC to the punch. Find tickets here.
