On Sunday, the UFC will hold an event on the South Lawn of the White House title UFC Freedom 250. The event marks one of the most unique and controversial sporting events in history.
Combat sports history is littered with plenty of unique venues hosting fights. We are just weeks removed from Oleksandr Usyk boxing Rico Verhoeven in front of the Pyramids in Giza, after all.
Ahead of UFC Freedom 250, we took a look back at mixed martial arts history to identify some of the most unique venues and set-ups.
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Let’s take a look at some of those iconic events.
UFC on Fight Island
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The COVID-19 pandemic had an obvious world-shaking impact in untold ways. UFC CEO Dana White took the bold approach of trying to keep the promotion churning along, even as the world shut down. As UFC held a series of events at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida and the Meta APEX (then called the UFC Apex), White announced that he had “secured an island.”
The idea of “Fight Island” conjured images of Bodog Fight events at Playa Tambor in Costa Rica (more on that later). While White gave media interviews saying they “built a small arena” in which to hold fights, he also said, “There will be an Octagon on the beach.” Unfortunately, that Octagon was just a promotional feature and events were held exclusively in the arena on Yas Island, an artificial island in Abu Dhabi. Fight Island wasn’t as unique an atmosphere as many expected, but the global circumstances and the lengths to which UFC had to go to keep events moving — for better or worse — in a global pandemic, it’s certainly one of the most unique locations in MMA history.
Bodog Fights on the beach
The dream of what Fight Island would be was actually realized in the mid 2000s when Bodog Fight held events on a beach in Costa Rica, with the ring set up close to the ocean. Fighters also trained on the beach while being put up in an all-inclusive hotel. The promotion also hosted many notable names, including fighters such as Eddie Alvarez, Chael Sonnen and Roy Nelson. It sounds like a dream in many ways, but there were also some harsh realities of fighting on a beach that inform why that “Octagon on the beach” never held any fights, as Alvarez told MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin in 2020.
“Just going in the ring with your feet, it felt like you were in hot sand,” Alvarez said. “The ring was crazy hot. So if you ended up on your back, your back was cooking. You probably had some burns on your back if you hit the canvas in that heat.”
Strikeforce at the Playboy Mansion
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Strikeforce burst onto the MMA scene in 2006 with a talent-rich roster. In just the promotion’s seventh event, they pulled off a unique move by holding an event at the Playboy Mansion. The card featured big names and was attended by 1,000 fans who paid $1,000 per ticket, along with plenty of MMA media and big Hollywood names. Hugh Hefner was also there, of course, to put the Playboy feel over the top.
The event was such a success that Strikeforce would return to the mansion the following year. In terms of iconic, unique American locations to host an MMA event, the Playboy Mansion holds a place at the top of the list. At least, it holds the spot until the first fight starts at the White House on Sunday.
UFC at the Sphere
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In terms of ambition, it’s hard to say any mixed martial arts event tops UFC 306. The event was the first fight card — and first live sporting event — to be held in The Sphere in Las Vegas. The true star of the show was the UFC’s production team, who were dealing with completely different technology than any event prior.
A blend of a UFC pay-per-view event and Mexican Independence Weekend celebration, the Octagon girls were dressed in unique costumes and high production value videos were shown on the Sphere between fights. White promised the event would be a one time only deal, but that one time proved very memorable.
The first UFC event in a stadium
UFC 129 still holds the record for the largest mixed martial arts event attendance in North American history. Held at Rogers Centre in Toronto, marking the first time a UFC event would be held in a stadium, tickets to the event sold so well that the promotion had to release more, going from 44,000 tickets available to a final attendance of 55,724.
The event was a tremendous success, buoyed by a promotion with significant momentum, a starved audience (UFC 129 was the first sanctioned MMA event in Ontario after legalization in the province the prior year) and a Canadian superstar in Georges St-Pierre in the main event. UFC 129 would hold the record for largest UFC audience from 2011 to 2015, when UFC 193 at Marvel Stadium in Australia drew 56,214 fans.
The first open-air arena UFC fights
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UFC 112 is very relevant to this week for one simple fact: it is, to date, the only UFC event to have been held in an open-air arena. After Abu Dhabi-owned Flash Entertainment purchased 10% of the then-UFC parent company Zuffa, an event was put together for the country and Concert Arena was constructed for the sole purpose of hosting the event and was torn down after.
White has long spoken of his hatred of holding events outdoors because of the variety of external factors, such as weather, that come into play. That is certainly the case heading into Sunday and the open-air event on the South Lawn of the White House, which has already seen the threat of rain, high temperatures and humidity — and a lot of bugs — pop up as fight night approaches.
Honorable mentions
American-based promotions certainly don’t hold a monopoly on unique and iconic fight locations.
M-1 Global held an annual event in the mountains, and the fights happened regardless of the weather, even as fans were subject to pouring rain. They also featured “medieval martial arts.”
Hexagone MMA has held events at Theatre Antique d’Orange. The Roman Theatre of Orange was built early in the 1st century AD under the rule of Augustus, founder of the Roman Empire and the first Roman emperor.
Another early Roman amphitheater, Pula Arena in Croatia, has played host to Fight Nation Championship events. It’s hard to match the history of holding an event in venues built thousands of years ago.
