UFC 193 is going ahead in Melbourne this weekend and as it’s November, it’s pretty much peak ‘summer’ in Australia.
The event is being held at the Ethiad Stadium, which handily enough has a retractable roof in case there is some bizarre chance of a shower of rain tonight for the action in the octagon.
It’s not going to happen, trust us, but most UFC events are held indoors, and the only venue in Ireland that has so far hosted any significant sizeable UFC event is of course the 3Arena.
So it’s no surprise to hear Dana White mention that if Conor McGregor wants to fight in Croke Park next summer – if he beats Jose Aldo first of course – then the UFC will have to try and figure out a few fairly sizeable issues issues first.
Speaking to Submission Radio, White admits that the weather and the residents of the area surrounding Croke Park are a key consideration for any event at the home of the GAA,
And it seems that the whole fiasco over Gareth Brooks has not gone unnoticed by the men and women of the UFC from last summer,
“The neighbourhood(is one). Apparently Garth Brooks sold out seven nights there and the neighbourhood was trying to make him shut down at a certain time, so he yanked all seven nights and never even went there. And he sold out seven nights in a row.”
“So we have a lot of challenges for Croke Park, but we want to make it happen if Conor wins.”
The weather is obviously another key concern for the UFC with a summertime event in Croke Park unlikely to be bathed in guaranteed sunshine no matter when it’s staged,
“The difficult thing about doing Croke Park is that it’s open to the outdoors and Ireland hasn’t got the best weather in the world. Here we can close the roof. More than that too, (Ireland) has a lot of challenges.”
You can watch the full interview below with White’s comments at the 4.20 mark.
