Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Professional Fighters League (PFL) are both set to get into business with Saudi Arabia in 2024.
Unfortunately for UFC, they were told recently by the country’s entertainment advisory board that the line up in the works for the originally planned March 2, 2024 debut date wasn’t good enough. Therefore, this will likely result in UFC Saudi Arabia getting postponed to June 2024 while the current eight fights for that March date will head to the good old UFC APEX Facility in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Meanwhile, PFL announced yesterday its first event of the year on Feb. 24, 2024, which will also be its debut in the country as well as its first event featuring the newly acquired Bellator roster. For PFL Founder, Donn Davis, he views this little saga as a clear win for his promotion.
“I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the UFC March 2 card was canceled the day before our fight [announcement],” Davis said on The MMA Hour. “Those who know MMA said, ‘That is not a mega-event. That is not worthy of being hosted in Saudi Arabia. That is a poor fight-quality card the UFC put forth on March 2.’
“Could UFC load up a card and have a mega-card? They could!” he continued. “Do they do it that often? They don’t. We’re going to do it every time we do it, and so our partners who are host partners, like Saudi Arabia — our partners who are PPV partners like DAZN or ESPN+, they know they can count on us for these two fights a year, best of the best of the best. That’s how we’re thinking about it in terms of the business model going forward.”
In terms of “mega cards,” UFC is quite clearly focused on its big upcoming celebration, which will be UFC 300 in April 2024. The events preceding, UFC 298 and UFC 299, aren’t looking too terrible either. Once the summer rolls around shortly after those events, however, it will be interesting to see what UFC comes up with for the inevitable first Saudi Arabia event.