The difficulty isn’t selling out the 85,000 seat El Bernabeu for a Topuria title defense, it’s convincing the UFC to book the stadium in the first place.
If the UFC builds a stadium show in Spain around Ilia Topuria, the fans will come.
That’s the main takeaway from a new interview Topuria’s coach Jorge Climent had with Hablemos MMA. The new featherweight champion was already getting a lot of grassroots support across Europe during his rise up the rankings. Now that he’s holding UFC gold, “El Matador” is getting a big promotional push from Spain’s Real Madrid soccer club.
Many of its top players are die-hard Topuria fans, and they’re spreading the gospel of Ilia across the country and the world. North American MMA fans can’t really grasp what this does for a fighter’s fame because we’ve never seen it happen before. But it’s big.
“In Spain, this was always a niche sport and the majority of the fan base was created by us, so it’s just incredible,” Climent said (translation by MMA Junkie). “Winning over the Real Madrid fan base, being with the top politicians, being on television, heck, I even get recognized by older women. I say to myself, ‘This is crazy. This is all so crazy.’”
The dream for Topuria is a massive stadium fight at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium, which can hold 85,000 people.
“I’m sure he sells out El Bernabeu and not just with Spanish fans,” Climent said. “Spain is the destination where all Europeans go on vacation. It’s very easy to come here and realize what paradise Spain is, so yeah, I’m sure he sells it out.”
The UFC has been notoriously adverse to holding stadium shows. UFC CEO Dana White usually mentions weather and poor views from the nosebleeds when deflecting requests from fans. The good news in this case? Santiago Bernabeu has a retractable roof and even adjustable seating for different types of sporting events.
“El Bernabeu is not just a stadium,” Climent said. “When you look at it from the outside, it’s closed like an arena. They have some machines that cover the grass field and the seat sections can be made closer. It’s all now automatic and new. I think they just reopened it this year. It’s all modern and new.”
“If I’m not mistaken, this year, they’re projected to do the NFL, NBA, so they’re bringing in many new projects. So why not also the UFC?”
Spain is ready, and Topuria is ready. Is the UFC ready? The promotion has proven itself to be pretty inflexible when it comes to their travel schedule. They infamously never made it to Africa during the reign of the “Three Kings,” Francis Ngannou, Kamaru Usman, and Israel Adesanya. And they keep passing on potential stadium shows. Conor McGregor never got his Croke Park event in Ireland. Anfield in Liverpool remains unused. Even Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas rarely comes up in discussion.
UFC has the perfect opportunity to level up the sport in Europe with an Ilia Topuria fight at El Bernabeu. Let’s hope we see it in 2024.