December 5th, ladies and gents. Mark the date.
Last week, it was suggested by iconic combat sports reporter Kevin Iole that the UFC were earmarking the first Saturday in December for the featherweight title unification bout between Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo at UFC 194.
Andrea Bocelli, of all bloody people, is currently booked to play at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on 5 December so the UFC were forced to look elsewhere and have made the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium their preferred choice of venue to stage what is being pegged as the biggest fight in the history of the promotion.
And UFC president Dana White has done nothing to quell those rumours with the interview that he gave Tim and Sid of Sportsnet yesterday.
“I just think you have to go to that stadium with the right fight,” White said. “Obviously the Aldo/McGregor fight is even bigger than it was… A lot of people thought McGregor couldn’t beat a wrestler and he did that so the fight is even bigger now.
“Obviously we’ll put together an amazing card and I think we could do it in Dallas.”
The capacity of the AT&T Stadium is around 80,000 and White made a point of stating that, should the fight be staged there, that there wouldn’t be any areas cordoned off as is often the case with larger venues.
“We’re talking about doing the whole stadium,” White confirmed.
The hosts went on to ask White how comfortable he was in giving the green light to produce an event of that magnitude given the fact that Jose Aldo withdrew from the main event of UFC 189 on such short notice, essentially jeopardising the entire card.
“If either of them (McGregor or Aldo) pulled out of that fight, it would be devastating to be at Dallas Texas Stadium but I believe that he (Aldo) will show up for this fight. Obviously there’s a lot of money at stake for him in this fight too, he wants to show up and he wants to fight.”
