Dana White: UFC Will Rearrange Schedule to Come Back to U.K. Again in 2022

Outside of its pay-per-view schedule, the Ultimate Fighting Championship has been content to hold events at its home base of the UFC Apex the past two years.

That’s due in large part to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made traveling throughout the year a far more difficult task. The Las Vegas-based promotion returned to London on Saturday for the first time since before the pandemic, and the UFC Fight Night 204 card delivered in a big way.

All told, the event set gate records for the O2 Arena and for a UFC Fight Night card. The fighters performed as well and were rewarded for their efforts: All nine who scored finishes received $50,000 bonuses at the end of the night. As it stands, UFC Fight Night 204 is an early frontrunner for “Event of the Year.”

“It seriously could not go any better. It was f—-ing unbelievable,” UFC president Dana White said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “Everybody’s been locked up for two and a half years. So many kids have been fighting in the Apex with no fans and to come in tonight in their home country and deliver the way that they did was a big night.”

The card was such a success that White has vowed to rearrange the UFC’s schedule to return to the U.K. before the conclusion of 2022.

“Tonight re-energized me and reminded me what it’s like to do fights over in the U.K. We’re coming back this year, I don’t give a s—t what the schedule is,” White said. “We’re gonna be moving s—t around when we get home.

“The way I look at it, you do half the kids that won, you come back here and do a card with them and somebody else and you take the other half of the kids to Abu Dhabi in October.”

White also revealed that he had hoped to book a pay-per-view card in London headlined by a welterweight title tilt between Kamaru Usman and Leon Edwards, but the champ is still in the process of recovering from an injury suffered in his last defense at UFC 268.

“So the only thing that would’ve made tonight better would’ve been if Usman and Leon were the main event and [Tom] Aspinall was the co-main event,” White said. “I wanted this card tonight to be a title fight. I was gonna move things around and make it happen but Usman’s hand wasn’t ready.

“I’m gonna have a pay-per-view here. I will bring a title fight.”

When it comes to the subject of holding more UFC events outside of Las Vegas, White will only go to venues that allow him to hold a card that fits his parameters. Without revealing specifics, he admitted that UFC London almost didn’t happen.

“We tried this and it worked out. We had some problems, I was considering pulling out of her two weeks ago,” White said. “I was gonna refund everyone’s tickets and go to Abu Dhabi. I’m just not gonna play games. I’m gonna go to places where I can run my business and do what I want to do.

“But I can tell you this, we will definitely gonna do France this year and I will definitely come back here again. This worked out. This was fun for us to come here and do this event. It was a little wobbly a couple weeks ago but we got it fixed…Very happy in every sense of the world and i’m gonna come back as soon as possible.”