The UFC will make its anticipated debut in Mexico City this November, with heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez defending his title against Brazilian challenger Fabricio Werdum.
And UFC president Dana White couldn’t be any happier.
“I expect it to be extremely successful here in Mexico, and if you see what we did in Brazil, and I’m using Brazil as a template (for Mexico), it just got bigger and bigger,” UFC president Dana White said at a recent press conference. “We put more and more events on in Brazil after we debuted there. I know the same thing will happen in Mexico.”
A UFC event in Mexico City is a clear move to capture the attention of a well-known combat sport capital. Mexican culture celebrates the sweet science, and has produced a multitude of boxing champions and legends such as Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya.
White is well aware of the potential, especially now that the UFC’s heavyweight champion is a dominant Mexican-American mixed martial artist.
“Boxing culture here (in Mexico City) is second to none,” White said. “But you can like both. You don’t have to like one and not like the other.”
The UFC announced it will hold an upcoming season of “The Ultimate Fighter” in Mexico coached by Velasquez and Werdum, a Brazilian who speaks fluent Spanish and even works as a commentator on Spanish-language UFC broadcasts.
“For the last few years, (the UFC) has been travelling the world crushing this negative stigma that was attached to this sport,” White said. “It takes time to change people’s minds, but that’s why were so excited.”
The UFC has indeed begun to seep into sports culture across the globe. In the past two years, the UFC has put on shows in the Middle East, China, Japan, Australia … the list goes on. Now the UFC is set to enter the Mexican fight market, in hopes of converting longtime boxing fans, or at least intriguing them.
“We haven’t put on an event here yet,” White said. “But we put the best fighters against the each other, we make the best fights, and we make fights the fans want to see.”