Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White, first and foremost, is a fight promoter. That means every mixed martial arts (MMA) event under the UFC banner will be sold as the greatest card ever assembled in the history of combat sports.
Take UFC 251 for example.
The “Usman vs. Masvidal” pay-per-view (PPV) event, according to White, is trending higher than a Conor McGregor fight, which taken at face value is pretty astonishing, especially considering “Notorious” holds four of the promotion’s five PPV records.
“This is trending off the charts,” White said during his UFC 251 media scrum. “This thing is trending higher than a Conor McGregor fight. The only that this fight is comparable to is Conor vs. Khabib. I’ll give you an interesting stat: Our UFC store has sold more merchandise already now than we did in all of 2019. We already beat 2019 with merchandise. This thing is trending as big of a fight as I’ve ever seen in my entire career.”
Kamaru Usman will defend his 170-pound title against late-replacement Jorge Masvidal, who steps in for the ailing Gilbert Burns on less than a week’s notice. So either “Gamebred” is the needle mover hardcore fans always believed he could be, or White is working overtime to get this card sold.
We’ll find out soon enough.
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 251 fight card RIGHT HERE, starting with the ESPN+/ESPN “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET, then the remaining undercard balance on ESPN+/ESPN at 8 p.m. ET, before the PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
To see the finalized UFC 251: “Usman vs Masvidal” fight card click here.