UFC targeting Madison Square Garden return in November

The UFC just packed up and still left Extensive Island, but it seems like the octagon will be back in New York just before very long. 

UFC president Dana White, speaking with reporters following the summary of Saturday’s very first party in Nassau County in 5 several years, indicated designs are to return for a Madison Sq. Yard show in the slide. 

“Hopefully, we’re coming back again to MSG in November,” White mentioned at UBS Arena. 

While White’s words and phrases weren’t a dedication, it is a safe and sound wager the UFC will invade the Backyard garden in a single of the initially two weekends in November. The advertising has held an annual celebration at the arena considering the fact that qualified blended martial arts became fully sanctioned in New York — the closing point out to do so — in early 2016. Only the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the program of fights in the city as UFC confined its demonstrates to its UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas and in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates — branded at the time as Battle Island. 

The UFC has operated its Back garden functions as a premium evening on the UFC agenda. The 2016 debut saw mercurial star Conor McGregor add the light-weight title to go with his featherweight crown. A 12 months later on, legend Georges St-Pierre came out of retirement to claim the middleweight belt. 

A pair of championship bouts involving Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington (welterweight) and Rose Namajunas and Zhang Weili (strawweight) topped the billing, plus a combat-of-the-calendar year-caliber lightweight scrap concerning Justin Gaethje and Michael Chandler that lived up to the hoopla. 

The precise day for this year’s party is unclear, whilst Combate in Brazil cited sources connected to the firm pinning the day down as Nov. 12. Also unclear at this phase is which bouts the promotion would seem to program.