This weekend, the Ultimate Fighting Championship held its first ever event in New York. UFC 205 emanated from Madison Square Garden Saturday night and it turned out to be a huge success. The main event saw UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor defeat UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez to win the lightweight championship. With this win, he became the first fighter in UFC history to simultaneously hold championships in multiple weight classes.
According to UFC president Dana White, UFC 205 shattered the 17-year-old record for live gate at Madison Square Garden. It also reportedly broke the live gate record for UFC events. Live gate is the amount paid by patrons to enter an event. He told FOX Sports during the World Series two weeks ago, "It's the biggest, baddest card we've ever done in the history of the company. We've been in all the biggest, best arenas all over the world — Madison Square Garden's a big deal. All the legendary fights that have been held there, all the legendary events and we actually broke the gate record for Madison Square Garden so, so far so good, I'm excited."
UFC broke the MSG gate record weeks before the event. This is astonishing to wrap your head around when you consider all of the iconic events to ever take place inside the world's most famous arena. All of the concerts, boxing fights, Knicks games, Rangers games, Wrestlemanias, college basketball games, NBA finals, and Stanley Cup finals and UFC 205's gate was higher than all of these historic events. The previous record was set in 1999 by the first Evander Holyfield vs Lennox Lewis fight. The gate for Holyfield vs Lewis was $13.5 million which drew a sell out crowd of 21,284.
Getting to MSG was a long and hard-fought battle for the UFC. In Feb. 1997, then-Gov. George E. Pataki signed a bill into law that banned mixed martial arts in the state of New York. In 2008, a bill to legalize MMA was introduced to the rules committee. In 2009 the Tourism committee voted to pass a bill that would enable the athletic commission to regulate the sport. However, there would be no other votes that session. Then, from 2010-2015, the New York State Senate passed a bill in each of those years to legalize MMA but it was shot down in the assembly every time as they refused to vote on it. Frustrated with the lack of progress, UFC filed an injunction suit in federal court in Manhattan to try to have the state's ban declared unconstitutional, saying the New York law banning its fights "is so badly written that neither ordinary persons nor state officials are able to say with any certainty what it permits and what it prohibits." Finally, in 2016, the Assembly voted on the bill and passed it.
The UFC plans to return to New York very soon. On Dec. 9 they will be holding a UFC Fight Night event at the Times Union Center in Albany, NY. Then, on Feb. 11, UFC 209 will be held from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY.
UFC 205 featured McGregor vs Alvarez, along with two other title fights, Tyron Woodley vs Stephen Thompson for the UFC welterweight title and Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs Karolina Kowalkiewicz for the women's strawweight title. The card also featured former champions Chris Weidman, Meisha Tate, and Frankie Edgar as well as fan favorite Khabib Nurmagomedov.
It was a great night of fights. But the show was undoubtedly highlighted by the vicious knockout of Alvarez by McGregor after a flurry of punches. It was an incredible performance by the Irishman as he made history. It will be interesting to see if he defends both belts in both weight classes or if he is forced to choose one or the other.
One thing that isn't in doubt though, is that he is undoubtedly UFC's biggest star and UFC 205 wouldn't have been as big a deal without him. His last three headlining bouts, UFC 194 (vs Jose Aldo), UFC 196 (vs Nate Diaz), and UFC 202 (vs Nate Diaz II), are three of the top six UFC pay-per-views in terms of buys. UFC 196 is said to have sold 1.5-1.6 million buys. UFC 205 will probably be somewhere in the same ballpark.
The UFC has arrived in New York, on the back of pay-per-view king, and double champion Conor McGregor. The New York fans were hungry for it and are undoubtedly looking forward to UFC 209 in Brooklyn on Feb.11.
