UFC 306 is Dana White's "Love Letter to Mexico" and It's Just What The UFC Needs

It's been nearly 31 years since the UFC threw their first event, a no-holds barred tournament with no rounds, no weight classes and no judges, just three rules: no biting, no eye gouging, and no groin shots.

In the three decades since the UFC has evolved from a morbid curiosity into a bonafide worldwide phenomenon, worth billions with continued growth. Much of that growth was spearheaded by Dana White, who took over as president of the company over 20 years ago and never looked back. Since then he's orchestrated worldwide expansion, a massive $4 billion sale and more.

But one final frontier has eluded the UFC and mixed martial arts as a whole:

Mexico.

"If you say you fight like a Mexican, it's like the biggest compliment that you could give someone in the fight business," White said during a visit to the Complex offices during a New York press trip to promote UFC 306. The event is being branded Riyadh Season Noche UFC, "a love letter to Mexico," and will be the first sporting event to take place in the mythical Sphere in Las Vegas.

Perhaps more importantly is the when, not the where. Mexican Independence Day weekend, along with Cinco de Mayo weekend are weekends typically earmarked for the biggest boxing events of the year. Celebrations of Mexican culture and fighting spirit on those weekends are what carried Oscar de la Hoya to superstardom. Floyd Mayweather Jr., somewhat humorously but also keenly took the mantle, making those weekends his staples for his Money Mayweather phase of his career. Eventually Canelo Alvarez made those weekends home, doing so again this weekend, a little over three miles away from UFC 306 when he takes on Edgar Berlanga at the T-Mobile arena.

"We're competing with everything that's going on that weekend," White said about the massive Vegas weekend that will also include a Peso Pluma concert and a reported 37 Latin music and comedy events from Live Nation alone, alongside all of the other attractions a busy Las Vegas weekend offers.

But the fight world is focused on the boxing vs. MMA duel.

"Canelo, I didn't know they were going to go in Vegas, but I knew they would go that weekend and it is what it is," White said confidently. "I like Canelo... Canelo's going to do his thing, I'm going to do mine. And Mexican people are going to watch both of them and do whatever else they're doing on Saturday night on Mexican Independence Day. So if you want to go on that night, you're competing with a lot of things to get the attention of the Mexican fans."

Competition has never scared the UFC off, and their lane is solidified. But the Mexican fighters that have buoyed boxing at times have been slow to make the transition from the ring to the Octagon. Only three Mexican fighters have claimed UFC gold, starting with Brandon Moreno's historic submission victory over Deiveson Figueiredo at UFC 263.

Getty Images

Alexa Grasso is the only Mexican fighter to currently hold gold in the UFC, and she'll serve as the co-main of UFC 306 in a rubber match with Valentina Shevchenko. But the UFC won't grow in Mexico on the back of a few fighters and a themed card on a marketable date each year. White knows growth begins in the gym.

"Mexicans have boxing gloves running through their veins," White said admiringly. "Boxing has been such a massive part of their culture and who they are as a people. I knew Mexico was going to be a tough place to crack, but we're there. It's happened and I just opened a Performance Institute there this year in Mexico City. This one's going to be bringing kids in off the street to train and MMA."

Dana says Mexican Independence Day weekend will be a staple for the UFC going forward, and UFC 306 is just the beginning. MMA finally working its way into such a fight rich culture was always a natural progression, but what is next for the UFC? Check below for what Dana had to say about that, what's next for the sports two biggest stars Jon Jones and Conor McGregor, his trademark Travis Scott 1s and more:

Dana, how you living man?

I'm good. Everything's good. Crazy week, but good. I'm looking forward to it. And we're getting down to crunch time here.

We're coming at you right ahead of UFC 306. You've said this is your love letter to Mexico. Talk to me a little bit about the event. Mexican Independence Day weekend. That has always been a huge week for fight fans. What do you guys have going on?

So obviously I went to U2 and saw The Sphere and I was blown away by the experience of it. So I said I want to be the first one to come in here and do a live sporting event and I needed a date and a place for Mexican Independence Day. So it was perfect. It was like this was meant to happen. So it's my love letter to Mexico. I'm a big fan of Mexican culture, the people and obviously their place in the history of combat sports. Some of the baddest dudes that ever walked the face of the earth have been Mexican. As a white kid growing up in America and I was a big Julio Caesar Chavez fan growing up. So this night is going to be about Mexico.
The first fight will start at the beginning of time and there's this movie that will play and there are chapters to this movie. It will end in the main event, which will be the future of Mexico, and we're going to tell the story of their culture, their history, where they came from, what they've gone through, their traditions, family and foods.

So it's literally, if you are Mexican, you do not want to miss this event. It is going to be like a Mexican Rocky movie. When you walk out, you're going to be so pumped to be Mexican and it's not even funny. And that's one of the things that I love about the people. First of all, if you say you fight like a Mexican, it's like the biggest compliment that you could give someone in the fight business, number one. Number two, if you look at them as a people, first of all their flag is the only national flag that depicts a fight on it. Did you know that? The eagle and the serpent. Then you talk about who they are as a people, they're looked at as hard workers. They work hard all the time. They're very into family and traditions. They're the type of people that will go work hard all week, take their paycheck and go spend it supporting other Mexicans with their money, whether it's the beer they drink, whether it's going to a concert or a fight or a sporting event, and they're very proud people. They're proud of where they come from and their country.

So let's talk about that a little bit as it pertains to UFC and MMA in general. I wouldn't say Mexicans have been slow there but didn't have your first champion in UFC till 2021. Where are they in the evolution of that? Again, like you said, long fight history there, long fight history in boxing and it seems like yes, culturally they are starting to migrate a little bit to MMA starting to take those dives and you've had three champions now. Where do you feel like we are in the evolution of that?

Well, I'll tell you why Mexico was slow to the party. So I was literally down in Mexico City a couple months ago. We did an event down there. We're driving to the arena and I look out the window and we drove by a playground. A Playground like you'd see anywhere in the world, with swings, monkey bars, slides. There's a boxing ring in the middle of the playground. I literally had to driver stop and I videoed it. That is what Mexicans have, boxing gloves running through their veins. Boxing has been such a massive part of their culture and who they are as a people. I knew Mexico was going to be a tough place to crack, but we're there. It's happened and I just opened a performance institute there this year in Mexico City. This one's going to be bringing kids in off the street to train and MMA. We have world champions, we have top ranked fighters now from Mexico.
So yeah, it's all starting to change and every year I'm taking this date, Mexican Independence Day. It's going to be a flagpole event for us from now on. And what The Sphere did for me is I look at this thing differently now. This thing was meant to happen and Monday morning, right after this Saturday, I'm going to be picking where we're going to go next. Is it Mexico? Do we go to Texas? Do we go to Arizona and how do we change it up and make it different? Obviously The Sphere will not be so it'll be different, but how do we raise the bar every year on this thing?

You guys are obviously competing with Canelo at the same city this weekend. Where do you sit with all that? A lot of noise there. I know your relationship with boxing, it goes back and forth. I heard your comments about Oscar de la Hoya this morning. Where do you guys sit there? Is that competition? Is it just dueling events, separate halves of the strip? What is the situation with it?

It's Mexican Independence Day this Saturday, so I'm going to be going up against everything that Mexicans are doing for the independence. We're competing with everything that's going on that weekend.

I didn't know Canelo was going to go in Vegas, but I knew he would go that weekend and it is what it is. There's a lot of people that still love boxing that wouldn't want UFC. This sold out. The biggest gate in UFC history and the most pre-buys we've ever had for an event, meaning buying it the week before, the week of the event. It's the biggest ever. So they're going to do their thing. I'm going to do my thing. I like Canelo, I have no, this is like my thing with Oscar. He's just trying to disrespect Canelo and act like, "Oh, now you're a fan of UFC, you show up to my event?" Get the hell out of here. Canelo's going to do his thing, I'm going to do mine. And Mexican people are going to watch both of them and do whatever else they're doing on Saturday night on Mexican Independence Day. So if you want to go on that night, you're competing with a lot of things to get the attention of the Mexican fans.

So, The Sphere. You mentioned it an arena unlike anything we've ever seen. You've seen some concerts there. This will be the first sporting event ever. What are you guys doing there to differentiate this from any other sporting event?

This has never happened and that's what I love about this. People's minds are blow. And people who have been to The Sphere and saw the concert think they know how it's going to work, but it's not. And yeah, this has never been done before. This is one of one and will never happen again. The sphere has never done anything Hispanic yet. It's brand new, just opened and I think that we repackaged this event and you can still run it at The Sphere and you run the fights inside, (and outside) the screens that will be there.

There's a lot of things that I have planned for this thing. It's never been done before, so we won't know what's wrong with it until it's over. You know what I mean? So normally our production, I've been dialing this in for 25 years, so we would do this event on Saturday and we'd go, all right, this didn't work, that didn't work, let's change this. There's none of that. This is a one and done and is it a good idea to do this? I'll know Sunday morning

Getty Images

Let's talk about the card a little bit. Suga Sean O'Malley up top. How are you feeling about this card? Seems like it's going to be an action packed night.

We've built this card to be a badass flight night. With fights you can never determine the outcome or how it will go, but you can determine whether you think stylistically the matchups are badass. The main event, two of the absolute best in the world, the number one contender (Merab Dvalishvili) versus the champion (O'Malley) in their prime. Nothing gets better than that.

Then the co-main event, Mexican born world champion (Grasso) taking on Valentina, who many people debated for a long time, who was the best female fighter in the world. Her or Amanda Nunes. This is their trilogy fight. The first two were unbelievable. And then when you look at the rest of the card, they're all action packed, badass fights that actually mean something. The outcome determines whether you're the champion again or you're the new champion or where you sit in the top five and will you get a title shot. Every fight on the card means something.

I want to talk about the sport in the UFC as a whole. You've grown so much. What is next for you guys as you continue to go globally and you are everywhere now you're selling out arenas all over the world. You have these rockstar athletes and you can put 'em in their hometowns, you can put 'em wherever they are. What is the continued growth for you guys?

So we continue to move into new markets that we haven't been to. We'll go to Africa next year working on that now. In the next 10 years want to open up a couple more (Performance Institutes) around the world. One of the reasons the sport's been so successful is because we reinvest in it. We continue to reinvest in the sport looking for new talent. And the other thing is the live events. When you thought about boxing they did Vegas in Atlantic City and every once in a while they do LA and New York. They didn't go anywhere else. We take these events everywhere, in every big city, small town all over the world. And one of the things that never happens at a UFC event is you don't walk out of a UFC event and go, "Yeah, I don't ever want to see one of these again." You know what I mean? The energy, the excitement, people become hooked and we continue to reinvest.

There's two guys I want to ask about, and you put them both on your Mount Rushmore today. I'm very curious about what the future holds for both of them. The first is Johnny Bones Jones. He was injured. We're waiting for him. There's these fights that are on deck for him that make a ton of sense. Where do things stand with Bones and what's next for him?

Yeah. So first of all, let me start with when people ask me my Mount Rushmore. It's going to be different than the fans in the media. There are different reasons when you talk about Conor (McGregor) and Rhonda (Rousey). You talk about Jon Jones, let's start there. So Jon Jones is going to fight here in Madison Square Garden in November and then if he wins or Stipe (Miocic) wins, then we see what happens next. Who will retire?. Do I think Stipe will retire? I do. I do think he will, but you never know. Stipe might want to take the challenge, but I know for a fact if Jon Jones wins that fight and all this talk that's out there, there's no way in hell he is not fighting Tom Aspinall next.

Yeah. Is the Francis Ngannou fight just long gone?

Long gon. Francis moved on.

The other guy I want to ask about is a guy you talk about often, you have to almost. Conor McGregor. He was supposed to fight just a while ago. Has his injury. Shows us his injury. Confirms it. What does the future hold for him? It seems like he wants to fight. You want him to fight, but things just keep not working out.

When you talk about him on the Mount Rushmore, for me he's either the first, I think he's the first to hold two belts at the same time. All the things that he accomplished, he ignited not just Europe but the entire world and became the biggest superstar, not just in this sport but in all of sports. You had other athletes mimicking him and all the stuff that he accomplished and what he did to advance this brand, this company and the sport itself. So he will fight in 2025. I don't know if you remember interviews with me where I wasn't very confident that he would fight in 2024, but he will fight in 2025.

What is it? He's so busy. I'd never question his dedication. But is he just too busy to be able to fight consistently? Does he not even want to? You can't really do anything about the injuries happening. What is it that's keeping him out of the octagon?

Well, exactly. The injury. Then you look at all the other things that he has going on outside his life. The guy has a ton of money. You know what I mean? And money changes everything. So when your priority, when you're young and coming up is to achieve all these things, then when you achieve them, all these other doors open up and he's no dummy. This guy has capitalized off what he's gotten here at the UFC. I was just having this conversation and we were talking about fighter pay and it comes up a lot and I never address it. I know what's going on. You may not. But Jon Jones hasn't fought in a while and everybody's bitching about it. Jon Jones has plenty of money. Conor McGregor has plenty of money. Ronda Rousey's gone. Ronda Rousey has plenty of money and the list goes on and on where when you get to a point where you achieve everything that you wanted to and all these other opportunities are rolling in, it just money changes everything.

I mean fighting is literally fighting. Jim Lampley used to say, you don't play this sport, you do it.

This a hundred percent.

And that comes from that place of like, I need to make it. Once you make it, yeah, it's a little different.

And you can be a talented baseball player and go out and play every week and do your thing. You have to be obsessed with this. You have to. And especially when you become the high profile person, like the Rondas and the Conors. And the hard part is is that all these other opportunities are coming at you that you're focused on and you're dealing with. Meanwhile, everybody else in the division is focused on you and how to beat you. And they're training with animals every single day to get to you, to beat you.

So last thing. I have to ask. We can't have come to Complex and not talk about what you're wearing. You got the Travis Scott (Jordan 1s) on. They told me you would have Travis' on.

All I wear.

Where's this coming from? Is that your guy? You just like them?

No, listen, I will tell you a couple stories here. So first of all, I saw the Travis Scott shoe and I thought it was brilliant. I love the shoe, I like the way they look, but more importantly, it's the most comfortable shoe that I've ever worn. I love the shoe itself. And so Travis Scott came to a Power sSap match and we're hanging out and he was coming. I knew he was coming. I was like, "Please, please God make this... I hope I like him." You know what I mean? I don't have to go home and burn 250 pairs of Travis Scotts. He was the coolest guy ever. I had a blast with him. Such a good dude. And yeah, I'm a big fan of his shoe.
We're talking 250 pairs?

No, in all reality 50. I have 50 pairs? 50, 50, 50.

Was What's your favorite?

My favorite would have to be the... fuck. It's hard to pick one. I love the blues. I love the cream colored ones too. It's hard to pick. No, I'm with you know what? You know what? The Travis Scott shoes, it's like it a father trying to say pick your favorite kid. I can't pick my favorite kid. I love 'em all.

The Travis Scotts are my favorite shoe that I've ever had in my entire life. That's how much I love the Travis Scotts.