The UFC is a global sport with events hosted in multiple countries. Every year, the world leader in MMA ventures into a new market in order to grow the sport. In 2022, the company hosted its first-ever event in Paris, France. This year, the Dana White led organization will be headed to Saudi Arabia for its first ever event. The UFC is now the latest addition of sports events that have been hosted in Saudi Arabia over the past few years.
UFC President Dana White took to Twitter to confirm the news of the event. The 54-year-old stated,
“What’s up guys, here with another announcement. On Saturday June 22nd, we will be going to Saudi Arabia. Our first fight in the kingdom. It will be a fight night that will air live and free on ABC. The main event will be former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker vs 13-0 undefeated Khamzat Chimaev to see who will be the number one contender for the UFC middleweight championship. This card is going to be be bad a** from top to bottom. It is going to be historic.”
BOOOOOOM!!!!!!
UFC is heading to Saudi Arabia for the first time with a BAD ASS card, headlined by Whittaker vs Chimaev LIVE and FREE on ABC on June 22nd pic.twitter.com/2OZW2AEmLH
— danawhite (@danawhite) March 28, 2024
Along with the main event, featuring Chimaev and Whittaker, White also announced a few other fights as well. The co-main event of the night will feature heavyweight knockout artist Sergei Pavlovich taking on Alexander Volkov. In addition to this, an exciting welterweight bout between Daniel Rodriguez and the former title challenger Kelvin Gastelum was also confirmed.
However, it does not stop there. White also announced Johnny Walker vs Volkan Oezdemir. Shara “Shara Bullet” Magomedov will also be on the card marking his second fight in the UFC. Magomedov will be aiming to extend his win streak to 13-0 with a win over Ihor Potieria. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has become a hotspot for hosting the biggest sporting events recently, and the UFC just joined the list.
UFC joins a long list of sports events taking place in Saudi Arabia
Over the past few years, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been investing heavily into sports. What started off with football has now quickly expanded into golf, tennis, WWE, F1 boxing and now the UFC. Just last year itself, Saudi Arabia hosted some of the biggest boxing matches featuring the likes of Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
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In addition to this, the Kingdom also hosts an F1 race, which took place a few weeks back. The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which is being used to fund its expansion into sports, has a whopping $700 billion in assets under management. Therefore, it will not be long before a lot of the major sports have at least one, if not multiple events at the Kingdom.
