In the immortal words of Bruce Buffer, 'It's time!' The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced they will host their first event in Mainland China on November 25. The Fight Night show will take place at the Mercedez-Benz Arena with early-bird tickets going on sale tomorrow.
The announcement was made during the UFC 214 pay-per-view event which aired yesterday morning (our time). At a post-event press conference, UFC President Dana White discussed the upcoming Shanghai show and the challenges in putting it together: 'We've been working over there for a while now trying to get this thing done and we finally did. It isn't easy to navigate through China.'
There have been no announced bouts for the event yet, although it will likely heavily feature Asian talent, much like the Fight Night event held in Singapore last June. There are a number of Chinese UFC fighters, most notably 'The Leech' Li Jingliang, who participated in the Singapore show defeating Frank Camacho.
Mixed martial arts are a topic of contention at the moment in China, after amateur MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong gave the business to a Tai Chi master in April, but nonetheless MMA is becoming increasingly popular in the Middle Kingdom and this debut has been long awaited by fans of the sport.
Tickets are priced from 280RMB-2,980RMB depending on location, with a 10 percent early-bird discount on some seats from August 1-15. Early-bird tickets will be available on Time Out Tickets from tomorrow.
Images courtesy of WME | IMG China.