Dana White: ‘Biggest Fight Ever’ Will ‘Happen Soon’

Getty UFC President Dana White speaks to the media after UFC 249 at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on May 09, 2020 in Jacksonville, Florida.

During a recent interview, UFC president Dana White said that the “biggest fight ever” will “happen soon.” Speaking with Fox News, White reflected on the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the promotion’s response to it.

In March, major sporting leagues halted play and the UFC canceled and postponed multiple events. However, spearheaded by White, the UFC was back in action well before leagues and other promotions, hosting UFC 249 on May 9, almost two months after its last event. The promotion implemented a bubble approach, quarantining and testing fighters as well as those involved with the event. And the fight card was a success.

UFC 249 was headlined by an interim lightweight title clash between Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje, with Gaethje claiming gold by fifth-round TKO. The UFC has put on 26 events since then, which includes seven Dana White Contender Series cards, and five more events are scheduled to take place, occurring every weekend in Abu Dhabi starting September 26.

White spoke to Fox News about the criticism he received from the media when the UFC was preparing to host UFC 249.

“The media’s hammered me every day, you know, about how dangerous, reckless this is, [saying] people are going to die,” White said.

However, the bubble system has been largely successful for the UFC. “You know, you have to figure this out, figure out how to make this thing safe,” White said. “Figure out how to get your employees and your players into a place where you guys can put on the games safely.”

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White Has Always Dreamed About Putting on a Fight the World Would Care About & Watch on the Same Channel

White told Fox News that although the UFC is already a global sport, it could be much bigger.

“We’re already a global sport, but I want this in every country on television everywhere, and eventually pull off the biggest fight the world has ever seen,” White said.

In terms of when the biggest fight will happen, White said, “It’s coming. It’s going to happen soon.”

“I always dreamed of a day where I would put on a fight that the world would care about and they could all watch it on the same channel,” White told the outlet. “You wouldn’t have to go out and cut 35 different television deals and all these different countries. Right now, that’s a reality  — every year streaming gets better and better and better.”

Two International Stars Would Be a Part of the ‘Biggest Fight Ever’

For the UFC to have the biggest fight ever, it would have to feature two international stars, White told Fox News. He said that their star power would have to be the caliber of arguably the UFC’s two biggest international stars right now, Ireland’s Conor McGregor and Russia’s Khabib Nurmagomedov.

The two fighters competed against each other at UFC 229 in October 2018, and the event still remains the promotion’s highest-selling PPV event with 2.4 million purchases.

“I believe that there will be major networks that are global in the next five to 10 years,” White said to the outlet. “Maybe it’s ESPN. Maybe it’s a Fox. I don’t know who it is yet. Maybe it’s a YouTube. There will be a few big networks that are global when that happens and I have two stars like those two and they fight, that’s when you pull numbers that nobody ever dreamed could happen.”

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