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RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – MARCH 20: UFC President Dana White speaks to the media during the UFC 189 World Media Tour Launch press conference at Maracanazinho on March 20, 2015 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Buda Mendes/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
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RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – MARCH 20: UFC President Dana White speaks to the media during the UFC 189 World Media Tour Launch press conference at Maracanazinho on March 20, 2015 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Buda Mendes/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
During the pandemic, The UFC was the only live sport going around the world. In fact, they pulled off a marketing genius by introducing ‘Fight Island’. Now, UFC President Dana White has revealed the coolest story about Fight Island.
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An astronaut told him about a story that happened in space, which White seemed very excited to share.
Here’s what White said, “He’s like Dana, I have a story for you, I’m an astronaut and during the pandemic, I was in the space station. He said it was me and the Russian guys, up in the space station. And we were going crazy up there. So they were beaming us, the UFC fights, coz it was the only thing that was on.”
“And he said you guys were on fight island. So there were a lot of Russians on the card too. We would get so excited for the fights and we would watch the fights for, you know, four hours. And then that’s all we talked about the rest of the night.”
“But you created this event, during the pandemic, where Russians and Americans could get together and be just as excited about it. And I was just like that is the f**king coolest UFC story that I’ve heard. They’re watching it on the f**king space.”
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Interesting to note that the UFC PPVs are not available in space. The astronauts probably used the Russian links Khabib Nurmagomedov mentioned a while back, to stream the fights.
Though White usually has a hard stance on the illegal UFC streamers, this was one of the time he had no issues with it.
Dana White pushed for UFC to be the first sport back
In 2020, the pandemic shut the entire world down and the El Presidente persisted in keeping the UFC running. However, because of ESPN’s request, they had to cancel some of their shows.
To counter all the COVID-19 protocols, White created the concept of UFC Fight Island. It was one of the most talked-about stories of 2020.
After a lot of speculations, the UFC announced their first Fight Island card. It took place on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi.
The first event of Fight Island, UFC 251, had three title bouts on the main card; Kamaru Usman defended his welterweight championship against Jorge Masvidal in the main event. The event was a major success; UFC 251 did around 1.3 million PPV buys.
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What do you make of this intriguing story?
