Dana White reacts to Alex Pereira & Merab Dvalishvili title wins
UFC CEO Dana White spoke to MMA Junkie and reporters at the UFC 320 post-fight press conference and talked Alex Pereira and Merab Dvalishvili’s title wins.
LAS VEGAS – Despite not loving the idea of hosting fights in a stadium, Dana White was very pleased with how the Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford event turned out.
The UFC CEO also committed his fight promotion talents to the boxing world, recently hosting the first big event at Allegiant Stadium in September alongside the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, Turki Alalshikh. The Netflix-broadcast blockbuster event saw Crawford (42-0) remain undefeated, becoming the undisputed super middleweight champion by defeating Canelo (63-3-2) in a unanimous decision.
“It went great,” White told MMA Junkie and other reporters during the UFC 320 post-fight news conference. “It couldn’t have gone better than it did, it was very successful. People that were there live felt like the live event was great. The commission told us it’s the best boxing event they’ve done in probably two decades, as far as the team and how smooth everything ran. Obviously, Netflix was very happy. It was as close to flawless as it could be.”
One of the big concerns for White heading into the event was the execution of the production in an NFL stadium. UFC shows are typically held in smaller venues, ranging from the UFC Apex, which has limited seating, to NBA-sized arenas that can seat around 20,000. The announced attendance for Canelo vs. Crawford was 70,482.
“I think that when you – it’s no different than the UFC and Power Slap and these other things that I do – every time you do an event, the event evolves and you figure out things that can be tweaked and fixed and done better,” White said. “We’ll continue to do that over the next couple of years with boxing. I haven’t sat down – we were supposed to do it on Thursday or Wednesday or whatever, I’ve been crazy busy, but I haven’t sat down and watched the event yet. We were supposed to do it this week, but I was too busy.”
The success of the event at a football-sized stadium did not change White’s mind on potentially hosting a UFC event in a similar venue.
“No. I hate stadiums,” White said. “But I’ll tell you this: the production team did a great job of making it feel not like a stadium. Especially I got a lot of good feedback from people who were there and people who were regular fans of boxing and fans that go to boxing events. So, we got a lot of good feedback from it. … We’ll just get better and better every time we do it.”
For White, it was just another day at the office, diving into another unique fight promotion. After hosting another two-title fight event at T-Mobile Arena, White was asked if it was nice to get back to the familiar feel of UFC pay-per-view week, and perhaps unsurprisingly, he would have preferred to dive into another unknown.
“This is what we do,” White said. “We did the Sphere, we’re gonna do the White House – I love that sh*t. Love it. The answer is no.”
