UFC exec talks scheduling hurdles for a headline Dublin event featuring Ian Garry or other stars: "It would be challenging"
UFC executive Dave Shaw recently came clean about their plans to host an event in Dublin with a few stars like Ian Machado Garry and others on the card. He said that it would be an uphill task and detailed the reason behind the same.
Dave Shaw, faced the media at the post-event press conference after UFC Edmonton, where he touched upon several issues. Initially, he expressed his pleasure about the massive improvement in the performances of the Canadian fighters featured on the card.
Following this, he also received a question about the upcoming UFC on ESPN 63, which is set to be headlined by a welterweight bout between Ian Garry and Joaquin Buckley.
The reporter wanted to know why the UFC refrained from picking Dublin as the venue of UFC on ESPN 63 as the local boy, Garry, would headline the event. He was also inquisitive about the UFC's plans for organizing a Dublin-based event.
In his reply, Shaw highlighted the challenges that the UFC authorities would face in hosting an event in Dublin. After citing an example of one of the arenas in Dublin, he said:
"Great venue [in terms of atmosphere], but you know, [it was a] small venue [in terms of capacity]. So, could we take our show to that arena? It would be challenging. It's not an insurmountable challenge that we won't be able to do it. But we'll have [may be having] a small event, because these small arenas [in Dublin] doesn't have the space that we need necessarily."
Check out Dave Shaw's comments (17:38):
How many events has the UFC hosted in Dublin?
Dave Shaw's words detailed that hosting a bright-lights event in Dublin seems to be a tough task as of now due to the unavailability of sufficiently large arenas. The job becomes even more tricky since stars like Ian Machado Garry are expected to draw in a massive number of fans.
However, the UFC has hosted three events in Dublin previously. Dana White and Co. made their way into Conor McGregor's native place for the first time in 2009 for UFC 93: Franklin vs. Henderson.
The second UFC event in Dublin featured the then-local star, Conor McGregor, whom the entire MMA community knows today. McGregor faced Diego Brandao and won via TKO in the first round.
UFC Fight Night: Holohan vs. Smolka in 2015, was the final UFC event that was organized in Dublin. There was a time when the Dublin-based 3Arena (O2 Arena back then) was enough to host UFC PPVs. But the subsequent growth in the UFC's popularity has made it challenging to host even Fight Night events there now.