UFC president Dana White revealed that UFC 205 has broken the gate record for Madison Square Garden, which would also double as the biggest gate in UFC history.
UFC president Dana White was in Chicago for game 3 of Major League Baseball’s World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs. FS1’s pregame show had Dana on for a few minutes to talk about UFC 205, which is now just two weeks away, and will mark the promotion’s first ever show at Madison Square Garden.
White fielded questions from host Kevin Burkhardt, as well as analysts Pete Rose, Frank Thomas, and Alex Rodriguez. When asked by Burkhardt about his feelings about finally staging a show in New York City’s iconic arena, White revealed the success of the event’s ticket sales.
“We’ve been in all the biggest, best arenas all over the world,” White said. “Madison Square Garden is a big deal. All the legendary fights that have been held there, all of the legendary events. We actually broke the gate record for Madison Square Garden, so … so far so good. I’m excited!”
No figure was given by Dana, although we’ll surely hear the final tally after the event is all wrapped up on November 12th. The gate record for Madison Square Garden is $13.5 million for the 1999 heavyweight mega fight between Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, which ended in a wholly incorrect controversial draw. If the UFC beat that record, then by default they’ll have broken their own gate record of $12,075,000 for UFC 129: St-Pierre vs. Shields in April 2011, which was a stadium show at Rogers Centre in Toronto.
As an aside, because Cleveland eliminated the Boston Red Sox this postseason, Dana White stated that he was rooting for the Cubs to win the World Series, and picked them to win game 3. Cleveland won 1-0 to take a 2-1 series lead in this best-of-7 format. The Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908, while Cleveland hasn’t won it all since 1948. Contrary to popular belief, a Chicago baseball team has won the World Series this century.