Saturday night’s fight was born to the sound of dog whistles. UFC has learned that negative headlines tend to produce positive returns at the box office
Hours after the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s initial foray into the UK for an historic card at the Royal Albert Hall, an ashen-faced Dana White stood in the lobby of his London hotel. It was the summer of 2002 and the UFC president was desperate for news about a late-night dust-up outside the posh nightclub Chinawhite that involved some of his best known fighters.
White was a novice promoter at that point, a year and a half on the job. His knew that his efforts to recast the UFC as something the general public could embrace was fragile enough that reports of the UFC’s most popular names brawling in the streets might imperil his business.
Written by Josh Gross
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/oct/08/conor-mcgregor-khabib-nurmagomedov-ufc-229-dana-white under the title “McGregor v Nurmagomedov showed UFC is happy to scrape the barrel | Josh Gross”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
