Only two weeks before the UFC was set to return to London, Dana White was looking at moving the entire operation to Abu Dhabi. At the post-fight press conference, amid the record-breaking sports gate at London’s O2 Arena and the emergence of a fresh crop of talented young British fighters, Dana White revealed that the London event almost failed to get off the ground.
“Tonight re-energized me and reminded me of what it’s like to do fights over in the UK. We’re coming back here, I don’t give a sh*t what the schedule is, we’re going to be moving some sh*t around when we get home.
Dana White: UFC London Was Almost UFC Abu Dhabi
The way I look at it, you do half the kids that won, you come back here and do a card with them. And then you take the other half of the kids to Abu Dhabi in October. So just off the top of my head, that’s what I’m thinking.”
It wasn’t just October that he was looking at, however. COVID-19 restrictions almost drove the UFC back to Fight Island.
“We tried this and it worked out. It worked. We had some problems. I was considering pulling out of here two weeks ago. Was going to refund everyone’s tickets and go to Abu Dhabi. So … it was just, you know, certain things.
The world is a nutty place right now. It’s not as easy to do business and I said I’m just not going to play games. I’m going to go to places where I’m able to go and run my business and do what I want to do. But I’ll tell you this: we’ll definitely do France this year and I’ll definitely come back here again.”
With the likes of Molly McCann, Tom Aspinall, and Paddy Pimblett all earning stunning victories before a cheering home crowd, Dana White is chomping at the bit to bring the UFC back as soon as possible.
“Coming in this week I was saying this is the greatest batch of talent we’ve ever seen in the history of the UK, and tonight we were going to find out how they were all going to do.
And they killed it, couldn’t do better. So yeah we have so many options now, so many things we could do which is why we’re going to go home and I’m going to figure out immediately how to come back here. I don’t know where we’ll go or what we’ll do yet, but like I said we have nothing but options.”
