UFC president Dana White is hoping to capitalise on the rise of talent from Down Under with a return to Oceania.
The UFC hasn't been to Australia or New Zealand since they hosted an event at Auckland's Spark Arena in early 2020, ruling out a return when Covid-19 set inand Australia and New Zealand introduced strict quarantine rules for anyone entering the countries.
When quarantine was mandatory, it wasn't logistically possible for the UFC to host an event given all of the foreign staff and fighters would have had to spend two weeks in isolation. While it didn't completely stop Australian and New Zealand fighters from competing, it did serve up extra hurdles to jump, however for the promotion itself, those were not possible.
However, with restrictions now eased, there is much more of a scope to get back into the region that has two of the promotion's 11 world champions - Israel Adesanya (middleweight) and Alexander Volkanovski (featherweight), who both defend their belts on Sunday at UFC 276 in Las Vegas.
Speaking to the Herald, White indicated that when the promotion does finally return Down Under, it will likely be to Australia.
"The fans going into this week, obviously for Australia and New Zealand, it's a big card for them this weekend. Two of their champions in the main and co-main event. I can't wait to get back into Australia and do an event there."
While there will always be rumours around when a return might come, White identified his current time frame as "probably early next year."
"I'm going to places where it's easy to run the business; easy to put on fights. Australia isn't easy - yet."
Mixed martial arts has taken huge strides in Oceania over the past two decades to the point where nine fighters from the region are ranked inside the top 15 of their respective divisions.
This weekend, Adesanya and Volkanovski headline the UFC's biggest card of the year and the biggest for the Oceania region as they defend their belts, while No14-ranked lightweight Brad Riddell takes on Jalin Turner in the featured prelim - seen as the appetiser or 'final selling point' for the main card, which is on pay-per-view.
"If you look back (20) years ago, we had Elvis Sinosic. We had one guy from Australia. Now, there is tons of talent coming out of Australia and New Zealand, and you have to main event and co-main event coming out of Australia and New Zealand. It couldn't be a better time for your part of the world."
Should Adesanya get past Jared Cannonier on Sunday afternoon, he will likely know who his next challenger will be, with a high-level middleweight bout between No4-ranked Sean Strickland and kickboxing phenom Alex Pereria - who is still green in his mixed martial arts career with a 5-1 record, but has been put on the fast track given his history against Adesanya in kickboxing.
