The UFC recently announced that China will be the next international destination to get a UFC event, and at last night’s UFC 148 post-fight press conference Dana White revealed another major country that’s set to follow suit in the near future.
“We are actually taking an event to Russia soon. Very soon, sooner than you think,” White told a Russian reporter.
This seems to have come out of the blue as it’s not a destination that the UFC President has talked much about in the past.
In fact the only time Russia has been discussed is when the country’s biggest MMA star Fedor Emelianenko’s name has been mentioned.
White is known to have a bad relationship with Emelianenko’s Russian based management M-1 Global and the fact that he’s continually refused to welcome the country’s national hero into the UFC’s ranks isn’t likely to have endeared him to the people in that region so it could be seen as something as a gamble to go there.
It’s potentially a very big market for the UFC if they could crack it however, so it makes sense for them to attempt to do so as they continued their aggressive expansion plans across the globe.
There’s no indication of exactly when the event might take place, but rest assured that when it is confirmed rumors of Fedor emerging from his recently announced retirement to finally sign for the UFC and fight at the show are going to be running rampant!
