The UFC is going back to Fight Island next year and according to UFC president Dana White, as many as three top-notch events have already been confirmed to take place in Abu Dhabi.
Fight Island was the revelation of the UFC in 2020. The company had already been in Abu Dhabi in September of last year for UFC 242, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, Fight Island become a necessity rather than a luxury. Many of the fighters in the UFC live outside of the US and flight restrictions prevented them from entering the country. Many regulations set in place in order to prevent the spread of the virus didn’t allow the company to hold an event in the US for a while. Transporting an entire organization and many fighters to the middle-east and assuring their safety was a risky bet but in the end, it was well worth it for the UFC. Despite a few cancellations, most fights took place as scheduled even did some pretty good numbers. To those numbers gets added the very generous fee paid by the UAE to promote their tourism and the financial hit of the pandemic was reduced exponentially.
It is not surprising then when UFC president Dana White announces that multiple events were already scheduled to happen on Fight Island in 2021. White shared a poster in his Instagram story announcing that as many as three events have been scheduled for January.
Dana white just announced UFC 257 will officially take place on fight Island pic.twitter.com/vIKNkHhCp4
— Noah Lang (@noahmattlang) December 22, 2020
These events include Holloway vs Kattar, Edwards vs Chimaev, and the long-awaited rematch between Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor at UFC 257.
Of those three main events, only Edwards and McGregor have never fought on Fight Island. McGregor was very recently scheduled to face Dustin Poirier on January 23. They will close out an amazing week of fights after the two previous fight nights on January 16 and January 20. Three events in the span of a week is a pretty aggressive start of 2021 for the UFC and it may be a preview of what the promotion has in store for next year.
