The UFC are looking to break records with their next visit to Australia for UFC 193 on November 15th as the event is set to take place at the Etihad Stadium in Melbourne with the intention of packing it with 70,000 fans.
“Finally the UFC is coming to Melbourne in what will be the biggest UFC event ever,” stated UFC president Dana White in a press release. “There’s been a lot of talk about Melbourne, title fights and stadium shows. The UFC is doing all three at the Etihad Stadium in front of 70,000 people. Australian has been an amazing market for the UFC and to thank the Aussies for all their support we are bringing the superstar of the welterweight division, UFC World Champion Robbie Lawler.”
If they can deliver 70,000 fans that would smash the current record of 55,000+ set at the Rogers Center in Canada for UFC 129 back in April of 2011.
For a big show like this they’ll need big fights and the event will be headlined by a welterweight title fight between current champion Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit which is sure to be an entertaining scrap.
At this moment in time the co-main event looks like being a rematch of arguably the best UFC heavyweight fight ever between Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva and Mark Hunt.
Those two match-ups had previously been announced, but the UFC have also now unveiled another main card bout between Michael Bisping and Australia’s own TUF: Smashes winner Robert Whittaker who’s currently on a three fight winning streak in the middleweight division.
It’ll be interesting to see if they look to bolster the main card line-up further with more big name stars. So far it looks like a fun line-up, though not neccessarily one that immediately stands out as stadium worthy.
However, the UFC may be counting on the fact that they have a strong fan base in Australia, haven’t oversaturated that market with events and will be bringing the Octagon to Melbourne for the first time ever in order to help drive ticket sales.
