MONTREAL — UFC 118 was a homecoming for UFC president Dana White, who spent some of his youth in Boston. The event was a major one, with a Fan Expo bringing tens of thousands of fans into the city. But since then, the UFC hasn’t been back, instead choosing New Jersey for most of its northeast trips, with a couple of stops in Pennsylvania sprinkled in.
That’s about to change. In recent weeks, White has voiced a belief that the promotion would hold its first sanctioned event in New York this year, but his commitment to Boston was much more firm. According to White, Beantown will indeed be on the 2013 schedule.
“We’ll be going back to Boston again this year,” he said during a UFC 158 post-fight interview. “We’ll do Boston this year.
Asked for a more specific date, White said he can’t announce it yet, but that it would be “sooner than people think.”
To date, UFC 118 has been the only UFC show held in Massachusetts in the promotion’s history. The night was memorable for Frankie Edgar’s dominant win over B.J. Penn in the main event, as well as the inclusion of boxing great James Toney, who was easily and predictably embarrassed by Randy Couture in a first-round submission defeat.
That event drew 14,168 fans and a gate of $2.8 million at the TD Garden.