“Boxing is a religion in Mexico” - Dana White’s adamance on rivaling Canelo Alvarez fight cards on Mexican holidays triggers mixed reactions online

Dana White recently stated that the UFC will go head-to-head with Canelo Alvarez on Mexican holidays from now on. Independence Day and Cinco De Mayo are two of the most important days in the Mexican calendar. They represent the national honor and spirit of independence in Mexican culture. Both days hold tremendous importance in the combat sports culture as well.

The UFC recently executed the Noche UFC event that commemorated the Mexican Independence Day. The event was a huge success and Dana White feels confident to go head-to-head with boxing on every Mexican holiday going forward. When reporters brought up Canelo Alvarez’s name as the solid competition to the UFC, Dana White replied:

“I will go [Mexican Independence Day] every day. I don’t care if somebody gets the date at the arena. I’ll go in an opposite Arena and go head-to-head with them next year. I’m doing this for the rest of my reign here [in the UFC]. They can go on the same night. We can go head-to-head. I’m going.”

Watch the UFC CEO make the statement from the 0:13 mark of the video below:

MMA journalist Michael Benson posted White’s remarks on his X (formerly Twitter) account.

It drew mixed reactions from Boxing and MMA fans. Here are some comments that grabbed our attention:

@BoxingKingdom14 commented:

"Good luck. Boxing is a religion in Mexico"

@CR_Tunes wrote:

"Let’s be real. The only reason they had big numbers is because there WASNT a canelo Álvarez fight on 16 de septiembre"

@ZzccMMA opined:

"Realistically Canelo will only fight 2-3 more times on that date and when he retires the UFC will have already established a trend of going on that date and will own it going forward."

MMA fan reactions to White's statement (Via X)

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Dana White puts the success of Noche UFC in perspective with hard facts

The recently concluded Noche UFC event on September 16, 2023, featured several Mexican fighters. The event was headlined by the women’s flyweight title fight between Mexican champion Alexa Grasso and her predecessor Valentina Shevchenko.

While speaking to the MMA media during the DWCS post-fight press conference, the UFC CEO presented a few numbers and revealed that Noche UFC has become the most-watched Fight Night event in the organization’s history.

“Noche UFC was the most watched Fight Night of all time on ESPN+. 1.1 million unique views. 1.1 million people that had never been on ESPN+ tuned in for that fight. So think about that. It generated 167 million total minutes, yeah. It did 3X the average viewership minutes watched on the Spanish feed. Killed it! It was an incredible success.”

Watch Dana White reveal the success of Noche UFC from the 6:25 mark of the video below: