UFC President and CEO Dana White will kick off his maiden voyage with combat sports power broker Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the General Entertainment Authority in Saudi Arabia, during UFC 306 on Mexican Independence Day weekend on Saturday.
The $20 million production and event is being billed as Riyadh Season Noche UFC, and it marks the first-ever live sporting event staged at The Sphere in Las Vegas. The event has been labeled as a “love letter” to Mexico.
UFC 306 will go head-to-head against Canelo Alvarez’s fight against Edgar Berlanga across the street on The Strip at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Although Alalshikh has insisted that UFC 306 will trump Alvarez’s show on Saturday night, White said the power broker still has good intentions for the sweet science.
“When you look at what Turki Alalshikh has done, it took Saudi Arabian money to make fights you never thought would be made,” White told BoxingScene. “This is the first guy that is reinvesting back into the sport of boxing. Everybody else takes. It’s like a going-out-of-business sale every time they put on an event. ‘Let’s grab as much money as we can and run.’ He’s actually reinvesting in the sport, and I find it interesting.”
Alalshikh will continue investing in MMA. Riyadh has already hosted a UFC show in June and is planning for another major card in the coming months.
But would White plan to be involved in Alalshikh’s boxing projects moving forward through his long-planned and since rebranded boxing outfit, TKO Boxing?
“There is nothing done with his company,” said White, days after alluding that anything was possible regarding helping Alalshikh with his recently proposed Saudi-backed boxing league.
“We’re doing some UFC and Power Slap events out there.”
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter whose work has appeared on ESPN, Fox Sports, USA Today, The Guardian, Newsweek, Men’s Health, NFL.com, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Ring Magazine, and more. He’s been writing for BoxingScene since 2018. Manouk is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube, through email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or via www.ManoukAkopyan.com.
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