The Mexican Independence Day event did huge numbers, and White is ready to go head-to-head with any boxing promoter that wants to hold an event on the same date.
Noche UFC is here to stay.
The first Mexican Independence Day event from the UFC was a bit of a shotgun affair, thrown together after UFC president Dana White was hammered endlessly by fans and press for a Mexico event. While the show ended up going down in Las Vegas rather than Mexico, the theme (headlined by Mexican UFC flyweight champion Alexa Grasso) proved to be a major success.
White shared a message he got from ESPN staff during a Contender Series post-fight press conference.
“Let me tell you this text I got today,” he said. “‘Hey Dana, your idea to go all in on Mexican Independence Day paid off. Noche UFC was the most watched Fight Night of all time on ESPN plus. 1.1 million unique views. 1.1 million people that had never been to ESPN plus tuned in for that fight. So think about that. It generated 167 million total minutes and it did 3x the average viewership minutes watched on the Spanish feed.”
“Killed it,” he said with a smile “It was an incredible success.”
And from now on, every Mexican Independence Day will feature another Noche UFC. The press noted that the UFC had influenced Canelo Alvarez to push back a fight originally planned for the day, and White said boxing promoters better be prepared to share the holiday moving forward.
“I will get that date every year from now on, yes,” he said. “I don’t care if somebody here in town gets the date at the arena, I’ll go in an opposing arena and go head-to-head with them next year. I’m doing this for the rest of my reign here, so they can go on the same night and go head-to-head. I’m going.”
“This thing was a massive success for us. This was something I was thinking about since the day we bought this company, so we’re finally in the position — all my chips are in on Mexico. We’re opening the Performance Institute which we spent millions and millions of dollars on. I was talking to you guys … we were talking about ‘Why aren’t you doing [Mexican Independence Day], I said you know what, you’re absolutely right, why are we not doing that.”
“We did it, it was huge, and we’ll do it again every year. Regardless of whether boxing goes or doesn’t go. I will go head-to-head with them every year.”
White also promised an actual honest-to-God event in Mexico soon, although he wouldn’t say when. He did imply, though, that having Alexa Grasso headline was a no-brainer. Grasso vs. Shevchenko 3 in Mexico? Sign us up!