Dana White taking UFC back on the road: ‘We gotta get out of the Apex’

The UFC was in St. Louis, Missouri last night for a fun event at the Enterprise Center which featured Derrick Lewis knocking a dude out and hometown hero Joaquin Buckley beating tough challenger Nursulton Ruziboev.

According to UFC CEO Dana White, the event marked the highest gate ever for a UFC Fight Night, generating $2.47 million with 15,960 fans in attendance. And those fans were hyped. It was a nice change of vibes after we’ve had to suffer through eight listless Fight Nights at the UFC Apex so far this year.

On a recent TKO Inc. earnings call, the corporate owners of the UFC suggested the Apex might get phased out over time, despite the obvious cost benefits of holding shows there. White seemed to echo similar sentiments after St. Louis.

“Even if you’re watching on ESPN, I mean, everybody — I’m sure you guys were getting text too. They’re like, ‘Jesus Christ. It’s like a pay per view there right now.’”

“And this is, when you think about how we built this business, it was taking it out of the big markets. When we first got into the fight business, everybody just went to Vegas, Atlantic City, sometimes New York, sometimes LA. That’s the only place that really had fights unless you had a local kid.

“We built this business taking this thing to every city all over the world,” he repeated. “And as we start to get our s— together, I will call it, and start to move out and start to go to these different cities like we used to, the whole sport just goes to another level.”

Asked if this meant the end of the Apex as the most used venue for UFC events, White replied yes.

“It’s what I’ve been saying for a long time,” he said. “We gotta get out of the Apex and start doing more events in all these different cities, and we’re starting to do it. We’re getting it done this year.”

We’ve been saying since the end of the pandemic that the Apex is a hype-killer that hurts the product and the UFC’s ability to develop the next generation of stars. With gates like St. Louis, even the nerds in accounting can’t deny it makes sense to get back on the road.