According to Kevin Iole from Yahoo sports the next UFC event in Australia may be hosted in Perth. Iole recently spoke to the UFC Director of International Development, Marshall Zelaznik, who said that Perth would be the spot for the next event.
At the fight club Q & A session in Sydney, White was asked if the UFC would return to Australia, and possibly Melbourne. White responded by saying that the UFC will definitely come back to Australia, with plans to return at least once per year.
The problem is that MMA isn't licensed in Melbourne, and Iole said that if the next event is not in Sydney again, it will be Perth.
MMA Razor was at the exclusive UFC 110 Question and Answer session
today with Dana White at the Acer Arena. Fight club members posed some
interesting questions to the president, who was more than happy to
answer even some of the more difficult questions.
Here is a short summary of some of the main questions and answers:
Will the UFC be coming back to Australia?
Dana White said that based on Australia's initial response, that they
will definitely be bringing the UFC down under again, and even
mentioned the possibility of an event in Melbourne.
Will the UFC ever fight in larger venues?
The UFC likes to keep the crowd size close to 20,000 but not much
bigger, so that fans will always feel close to the action. Supersized
arenas are therefore not ideal for the UFC experience.
Will there be any new weight categories in the UFC such as a Super Heavyweight Category?
Dana said this is unlikely to happen. He cited that with sports like
boxing things can get confusing with many weight divisions, and that
things are likely to stay the way they are.
Will the UFC ever have it's own ranking system?
The UFC is happy with it's current model and prefers to give the
fans the fights they want to see, rather than following a systematic
ranking system which doesn't mean that the fights will always be the
most exciting ones available.
Other discussions involved popular topics such as Fedor, Anderson
Silva, GSP. There was also discussion of UFC training centres which
will be opening in the USA, but possible countries like Australia in
the future. Overall the Question and Answer session provided a positive
indication of the continued international growth of the UFC, with many
more exciting times for Australian fans.
Latest news from
Sherdog indicates that the Former Light HeavyWeight champion has signed a new contract with the UFC. It appears that Dana White and Tito have settled their long disputed differences to make way for Tito to re-join the competition and compete at 205 pounds.
Dana White has said that Tito is "still a guy that fans want to see fight". Whether you love him or you hate him, he generates interest.
Tito is set to fight Mark Coleman on his return, although not date has been scheduled.
According to Adam Baker of Dreamfighters.com, the WAMMA heavyweight Champion Fedor Emelianenko has stated that he may meet in the near future with UFC President Dana White. According to Fedor, discussions are likely to be focused on a possible matchup between Fedor and the current UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar. Emelianenko competed recently against former UFC Heavyweight title holder Andrei Arlovski and defeated him in the first round via KO.
Fedor is currently still contracted to M1 Global, so discussions may focus on an agreement between the UFC and M1 with a Co-Promotion a possible outcome.