UFC Exec reveals UFC Africa is 'definitely a 2025 thing' following Dricus Du Plessis' impressive title defense
19/08/2024 12:48
Following Dricus Du Plessis’ successful middleweight title defense against Israel Adesanya at UFC 305 this past Saturday, UFC executive, Dave Shaw, has revealed that UFC Africa is a definite for 2025.
For a while, a UFC event in Africa felt like a pipe dream but then the promotion donned three dominant champions from the continent which felt like a perfect time for them to tap into that market.
Despite years of claiming that they were going to finally hold an event in the region, it never came to fruition and then Francis Ngannou left the promotion, and Kamaru Usman and Israel Adesanya lost their titles.
Dave Shaw reveals UFC Africa will ‘definitely’ happen in 2025
Having said that, after making his UFC debut in 2020, Dricus Du Plessis quickly rose up the rankings and claimed the UFC middleweight title, once again making an event in Africa possible.
Ahead of his 185lb title defense against Israel Adesanya this past Saturday, UFC CEO Dana White claimed that if the South African successfully defended his title then he would take an event to his home country.
‘Stillknocks’ ended up securing the fourth round submission win, retaining his title and possibly finally locking in an event in Africa.
Following the event, UFC Executive Vice President and Head of International and Content, David Shaw reiterated the promotions plans to finally hold an event in Africa, with them likely not letting the potential slip away for a second time.
“I think we’re probably closer than we’ve been in a while (to doing an event in Africa) and there’s significant interest from a few different countries. The Dricus situation is tough, I mean he’s a champion, are we going to take a PPV there at the same timezone as the UK (PPV), we’ve just done the Manchester event so it’s absolutely possible but we also want to make a good first impression,” Shaw said at the UFC 305 post fight press conference.
“If we’re coming to continental Africa for the first time do we want to do an event in the middle of the night? One thing that’s clear, back to Manchester, is if Dana wants to do an event for the fans for the growth of the sport despite headwinds or challenges operationally where the event is and what time it’s going to have to be booked then he’s going to make that decision.
“The short answer is that we’ve got a few different countries that we’re targeting but this is definitely a 2025 thing, we don’t want to wait much longer,” Shaw continued.
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UFC still not willing to do stadium shows without a roof
Although they may be making a breakthrough with UFC Africa, the promotion is still holding their stance about doing shows in stadiums without a roof.
For years now, UK UFC fans have been calling for the promotion to hold an event in a stadium as there have been recent issues in picking up tickets for the smaller arena based shows.
White has always held firm on the fact that the weather in the UK is too unreliable to do a stadium show, especially if it doesn’t have a roof. Dave Shaw continued with this notion, stating that it is unlikely they will do any stadium shows in the near future.
“We don’t want to take the risk of weather. The production costs would be tremendously large if we had to deal with the weather. And then you’ve got the situation risk of having a real negative impact on the field of play,” Shaw stated.
