UFC Working For Scottish Venue, Event
January 19, 2009
UFC UK Chief Marshall Zelaznik spoke with the Daily Record of Scotland and re-affrimed the UFC’s plans to hit all corners of the Brisitish Isles. One area of note was Scotland, which had been in the running for running for the Next British card:
ULTIMATE Fighting Championship UK chief Marshall Zelaznik admits Glasgow came close to staging next month’s pay per view event – and won’t rule out heading to Scotland before 2009 is out.
The showdown card between Joe Stevenson and Diego Sanchez ultimately went to the much larger O2 Arena in London, which because of it’s size was able to make a more lucrative offer to stage the show
Zelaznik admits Scotland will struggle to land a major event in future until a larger arena is built or Braehead is expanded.
The article elaborated on a Fight Night card being a possible scenario, but it would be interesting to see if the smaller than normal gate and a rights fee from Spike would make the economics of such a plan work. Zelaznik also spoke of holding an annual St. Patrick’s Day card in Ireland. Slowly but surely, Zelasnik is adding dates to eventually have a year round circuit for the UK and Europe. Britain proper could at some point in the future bear quarterly events, then you throw in one or two dates a year combined in Ireland/Northern Ireland, as well as a couple of dates a year in mainland Europe and you are looking at a calendar that is filling up quickly for Euro fight fans.
