IRISH MIXED MARTIAL arts fans will be delighted to hear the UFC has confirmed its return to Ireland for an event this July.
Dana White, president of the elite franchise in MMA, revealed last August that they would stage a fight night here sometime in 2014, with Dubliner Conor McGregor (currently recovering from knee surgery) mooted for a possible headline bout in front of home fans.
News that the UFC was heading to Germany in May was announced this morning and, speaking on talkSport this afternoon executive vice president and managing director of UFC EMEA Garry Cook said:
The UFC is going to Dublin on July 19th and exploring Glasgow in 2015.”
It will be the promotion’s second time at Dublin’s O2 Arena after Rich Franklin and Dan Henderson headlined UFC 93 in January 2009.
July the 19th… Isn’t that the day the ice age ended
Yeeesss, at last its official! Hopefully they give us a decent card now. The last one in the o2 was an unbelievable card for a European event! It was hard enough to get tickets last time, this will sell out in the first day no doubt!
Going to be some night if the last was anything to go by! I was just onto the O2 there and tickets won’t be on general sale for a few more days!
Yeah it was unreal. They’re never going to top a line-up that included Rich Franklin, Dan Henderson, Shogun-Rua, Mark Coleman, Sam Stout, Dennis Seiver etc. I just hope they give a half decent line-up..the last few cards they’ve given Britain have been pretty dismal.
And I hope they give McGregor someone inside top 15 at least, and not some mickey mouse opponent, so we can start to see what he is really made of. Cole Miller would be an interesting match-up, and he’s been calling for a fight with McGregor!
Inside the top 15 at the very least. It will be interesting to see how his career develops, if he will dodge certain fighters. He seems to be a very well rounded fighter from what I have seen from him, but only time will tell. I admire his ethos and attitude though. Hopefully he can fulfil his potential though.
Dara, I’d love to see McGregor smash that wan€er Cole Miller after what he said about European fighters. It’s also an ideal situation for Irish MMA fighters to try to make a name for themselves in the prelims.
I hope to God the rumors of McGregor main eventing v Miller arent true, Co-Main maybe, but two fellas outside the top 10 shouldnt be heading the bill.
There’ll be some amount of scobes turning up to that, steer clear
What are you basing that on???
I’m sure they’ll be a lot of genuine MMA fans there to see the fights, but you can be sure there’ll be plenty of jumped up knack bags thinking they’re Conor McGregor
So pretty much the mixed crowd you get at any sports event then yeah?
Ha always the same. I was at Cage Warriors last Saturday and it was full of clowns
Along with plenty of genuine fans though…
@ Robert – gotta agree. I’m a huge UFC fan since 1997 (I discovered it when Ken Shamrock came to WWF), but I won’t be going to this show after the amount of tools at the last one. People walking around trying to look hard all night and goofballs yelling dumb stuff from the crowd – yelling to the ring girls all night: “show us your gee!”, then nudging each other and chuckling like morons.
Plus, it’s a long show and people have been drinking all day – not to mention the bus-loads of culchies that most likely started drinking when they left Ballynahuasal 10 hours earlier.
I’ve been to WWE, TNA, Soccer, Cage Warriors, GAA, NFL, UFC – and the MMA crowds have to be the biggest bunch of tools at any sporting event. They all walk around trying to act hard.
I was at a Chaos FC show in Derry in 2009 and a near riot broke out because there were so many wannabe hard lads in the crowd.
I cant believe people are still paying in to see wrestlemania
Wwe Wrestlemania does much bigger business than ufc does in a year
But why? Its the showcase of the immortals!
“Wwe Wrestlemania does much bigger business than ufc does in a year”
The facts say you’re lying. Wrestlemania 29 did 1,048,000 PPV buys, whilst UFC did an estimated 5.8m buys over the 13 PPVs they ran in 2013.
People are red-thumbing hard facts… I see.
Wrestlemania 29 made over $74 million dollars in ticket sales and ppv buys add in the money spent on the merchandise and dvd sales of the event it’s well above $100 million
Yeah, and that’s not more than what UFC make in a year. WTF is wrong with your maths?
Wwe is a listed company and its accounts are public record , wwe said they made over $170 million from Wrestlemania weekend even after paying the cable companies there share of the ppv money , ufc is not listed but it’s believed their profits for ppv after paying cable company’s is less than $100 million for a calendar year , also ufc buy rates have dropped off by nearly 60% in the past 3 years however boxing ppvs are on the rise ,ufc would want to be careful it does not go the way of pride mma
WWE profit for 2013 was $12m. UFCs was $180m.
I’m definitely going to that, I love watching big lugs hitting each other.
Would it be great if there was an event like this every week where people on welfare would be thrown in a cage for our entertainment- throw in a weapon every 30 seconds. It would be great to watch
:o when are the tickets on sale?.,anyone?
Should have it at the Aviva!!
Dress your child up like a poodle and Irish wimin will murder you. Comatise a man into a mm from death and its the craic. Fair is fair.