UFC President Dana White believes that mixed martial arts will someday become one of the many sports featured in the Olympics.
The UFC president was participating in a fan Q&A session with Laura Sanko ahead of UFC 275 when a Twitter user inquired about White’s thoughts on MMA in the Olympics. White responded with:
“I think it should be an Olympic sport already. It’s not my job, it’s not what I’m looking to do. I’m not pushing to turn this thing into an Olympic sport. And I agree with whoever said that, yes, and not to mention one of the big problems the Olympics is having right now is viewership. You want viewers? Put MMA in the Olympics.”
Adding a sport to the Olympics is a time-consuming and complicated process that Dana White does not have time to handle on top of running the UFC. Fortunately, other organizations, such as the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation, have been working on developing the necessary amateur framework for Olympic consideration since 2012.
The IMMAF has helped bring together 120 national MMA federations after a decade of hard graft, with 49 officially recognized by Olympic committees and other national sports authorities.
Unfortunately, MMA is still a contentious sport in Olympic circles. So its inclusion in the near or distant future remains uncertain. Many people who have followed the various Olympic boxing corruption scandals and scoring controversies over the years have questioned whether Olympic inclusion would benefit MMA.
Dana White discusses why the UFC may not return to Canada in 2022
UFC 275 is being held in Singapore. It is the first UFC event in Asia since the COVID-19 pandemic began more than two years ago.
While many UFC Fight Night events continue to occur at the Apex Center in Las Vegas, the promotion has been venturing out more frequently. The UFC will debut in France in September. On the other hand, fans in Canada may have to wait a little longer for the UFC to return to their country.
Dana White recently stated in an interview with Canadian broadcaster TSN:
“Obviously Canada is a huge market for us. Canada is a big part of our history — love it up there. It’s just going to depend on whether the world gets back to normal. I wanna go back to Canada this year, but let’s see. I think that in Canada right now, we’d need a fully vaccinated card. Everybody on the card has to be vaccinated. Yeah, that’s the problem.”
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