Dana White says the UFC’s Fight Island idea started with a hard stop during the early COVID shutdown, when he was told he could not run events inside the Apex even after building the facility for exactly that kind of control.
White revisited the story during a new appearance on The Pivot Podcast. He said the promotion was finishing the Apex when COVID hit, and his first pitch was not a massive international operation. It was a stripped-down event with production staff, distancing, masks, and rules inside the UFC’s own arena.
White Says The Apex Plan Was Blocked
White said the pandemic arrived right as the UFC was completing the building next door.
“COVID starting. We’re putting the last screw in the Apex. I just built my own arena,” White said.
That led to the call with a governor. White said he tried to explain how small the operation could be.
“So, I’m talking to the governor and I’m like, I can put on fights. I just need production guys. We can social distance. We can wear masks,” White said.
White said the answer still came back no, even after he argued that other pandemic-era restrictions were already being accepted.
“He’s telling me I can’t do it,” White said. “What do you mean I can’t do it? There’s all these other things we can do, but I can’t go put on this sporting event in my own arena next door if I follow all these rules?”
According to White, that refusal pushed the UFC past the domestic Apex idea and toward a controlled international setup.
Fight Island Became The Answer
“He’s like, ‘Yeah, no, you can’t do it,'” White said. “I’m like, ‘Well, you know what? [expletive] you.'”
White said the next answer was to move the operation somewhere isolated and build around the Octagon there.
“All I need, I’ll go to a [expletive] deserted island somewhere,” White said. “I got to set up an Octagon. I got to have this, that, and… that’s how Fight Island was created.”
“Our sport grew 77% during COVID,” White said.
The UFC eventually staged its Fight Island events on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, giving international fighters a way to compete while travel restrictions and venue rules were still changing.
The business point connects to White’s recent comments on the UFC staying aggressive through big swings. He has also discussed why the UFC never closed a Fedor Emelianenko deal, defended the promotion’s current matchmaking structure, and detailed plans around UFC Freedom 250 at the Ellipse.
White’s version is blunt: Fight Island was not born as a branding exercise first. It started because the UFC was told it could not use the building it had just finished, and White decided the Octagon could move.
