Dana White Expects 60,000 Sell Out For Robert Whittaker vs. Israel Adesanya
Dana White is expecting UFC 243’s headliner between Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya to be a sell out.
Whittaker and Adesanya will collide in a middleweight title unification fight at UFC 243, which takes place October 5. For a long time, there were doubts as to where it would take place. In the end, Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium was decided as the location for what is being regarded as the biggest Australasian fight in combat sports history.
The stadium hosts 60,000 fans and was where Ronda Rousey headlined against Holly Holm for UFC 193 back in 2015. That event drew a UFC record 56,214 fans. However, White expects that record to be broken for UFC 243:
“I think we sell it out at 60,000,” White told reporters. “It’s going to be the biggest fight in Australian history, period. Any fight they’ve ever done there, this is going to be the biggest fight ever. This fight is global.
“When they did big fights in Australia, whether it was a boxing match or whatever, even if all of Australia was engaged, the rest of the world wasn’t. You have the Middle East, you got Europe, you have Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, all these countries are going to be interested in this fight. I don’t think there’s ever been a fight since Kostya Tszyu or something, where there was a fight where the rest of the world was interested.”
A number of factors led to this fight happening, especially with Adesanya only debuting for the promotion last year. And for White, he feels nobody could have written a better script:
“If I was Vince McMahon writing scripts, you couldn’t write a better script than this,” White added. “You have the champion who’s from Australia, and then you have the interim champion – it just couldn’t be better.”
Do you think UFC 243 will boast the new UFC record attendance?
