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| Tom Wright speaks to a crowd at Saskatoon's O'Brians Event Centre. |
The UFC’s
first stop in Saskatchewan will likely be its only stop in the next number of
years.
Tom Wright,
the UFC’s executive vice-president and general manager for Canada, Australia
and New Zealand, wants to bring the promotion back to the “Wheat Province.” The
premier professional circuit for mixed martial arts held UFC Fight Night 74 at
Saskatoon’s SaskTel Centre on Aug. 23 before 7,202 spectators bringing in a
gate of $949,000. Wright was pleased with the gate.
Standing in
the way of a Saskatchewan return is the fact the UFC brass has a lengthy list
of Canadian communities they want to visit.
“It will
probably be a few years, because there are a bunch of other cities across the
country that we’ve never been to,” said Wright. “We’ve never been to Windsor.
We’ve never been to Edmonton. We’ve never been to Ottawa. We’ve never been to
St. John’s. We’ve never been to Victoria.
“There are a
tonne of Canadian cities that we’d like to go to. When you are trying to
schedule a global sport with a finite number of dates, there are a lot of
different cities that want these events. A lot of depends on venue
availability, it depends on the time of the year (and) it depends on what else
is going on around the world.”
With that
said, Wright was happy with how well things went for the fight card in
Saskatoon and with the various functions the promotion put on across the city
in the three days leading up to Fight Night 74.
“We’ve been
planning to have this event for quite some time,” said Wright. “We came here
last year with the UFC Experience, when we went to Regina. We were really well
received.
“We’ve
always wanted to bring our sport to Saskatchewan. We know we have a lot of
really engaged and knowledgeable fans here. It has been a great week so far.”
Wright is
keenly aware about how passionately people in Saskatchewan can get behind a
sporting interest. From 2002 to 2007, he was the commissioner of the CFL and
gained a lot of experience with how much emotion fans of the Saskatchewan
Roughriders invest in their team.
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| Fans enjoyed checking out the UFC Experience outside the SaskTel Centre. |
When government of the province where the colours of green and white dominate passed the Athletics Commission Act in early March, it allowed "The Land of the Living Skies" to hold professional combat sporting events like mixed martial
arts.
In bringing
the UFC to the province for the first time, Wright said the organization wanted
to have a main event that would be a crowd pleaser. He believed a featherweight
tilt between Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira would fit that need. Heading
into that fight, Holloway was rated fifth in the UFC’s featherweight rankings,
while Oliveira was seventh.
The card
experienced a bit of bad luck on that front, when Oliveira was forced to retire
at 1:39 of the first round due to injury. After an exchange, the Sao Paulo,
Brazil, product started to favour his right shoulder.
Oliveira
went down and the fight was stopped, giving Holloway a knockout victory.
The co-main
event between Neil Magny and Erick Silva lacked action, but Magny managed to
win by split decision.
The 10 bouts
leading to the main event matches were really good, so fans did get bang for
their buck.
The
welterweight fight between Patrick Cote and Josh Burkman, which was given fight
of the night honours, was a back and forth physical battle. It ended at 1:26 of
the third round, when Cote, who is a fan favourite from Rimouski, Quebec,
knocked out Burkman. The crowd at the SaskTel Centre rose to their feet to give
their loudest ovation of the night.
“I thought
the evening was terrific,” said Wright. “The crowd was here early. Half the
building was filled before the first fight.
“They were
loud. They were excited. They responded.”
Cote said he
could feel the crowd’s passion during his stop in Saskatoon.
“They are
great fans here of mixed martial art,” said Cote. “For sure when you are from
the country, you feel the support.
“The same
thing in Montreal. The same thing everywhere in Canada. When I fought in Quebec
City, it was the same thing, and here that was just insane.”
During the
UFC’s stop in Saskatoon, the athletes were pretty engaging with the fans that
they met. Cote was a huge fan favourite, and his opponent, the veteran Burkman,
often spoke with a soft heart.
“It is
great, because there is still a lot of misconception about our sport,” said
Wright about the athlete’s interactions with the fans. “There are myths that
need to be dispelled and perspectives that need to be informed.
“The best
spokespeople are our athletes. They are engaging, they are intelligent, they
are well-spoken and the vast majority have university degrees. These guys and
girls are tough competitors, but they are very honourable competitors too.
“It is the
hallmarks of our sport.”
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| The UFC makes a donation to Special Olympics Canada in Saskatoon. |
During his
five-plus years with the UFC, Wright said the organization has made big growth.
The fact Fight Night 74 was held in Saskatoon marked another milestone for the
promotion in Canada.
“When we
first started, we weren’t sanctioned in Ontario, we weren’t sanctioned in B.C.,
Saskatchewan,” said Wright. “We only held events in Montreal.
“Since that
five years, we’ve gone from one city and one province to this event will be the
19th event in Canada in our eighth city and our seventh province,
which is pretty cool.”
Wright said
there are a few differences between working as a high executive with the UFC
and CFL. The differences include the fact Canadian professional football has
been around for over 100 years, while the UFC has been around for just over 20
years and is a global sport.
The similarities
are numerous, which has made work for the UFC feel quite natural.
“The
Canadian Football League you are dealing with world class athletes who train
hard and are committed to make sacrifices,” said Wright. “Mixed martial artists
are no different. They are world class athletes, hard-working and they train
like nobody else. The athletes are very similar.
“Our fans
are really passionate. They are smart, they are engaged (and) they are
committed. I have a great team of people I work with here in Canada, and I had
a great team in the CFL I worked with as well.”
Back in the Express with
more UFC
I was back
in the Saskatoon Express this week writing a column about the UFC making a
return to Saskatchewan.
That column
can be found right here.
If you have any comments or thoughts
you would like to pass along about this blog post, feel free to email them to
stankssports@gmail.com.
