The biggest sporting event in Canada this weekend won't be a hockey game, no matter who is playing.
And that's not just Dana White talking — though of course he is, non-stop, rapid-fire, using the occasional profanity as punctuation, even without really being asked a question.
"This fight is big, man," he exclaims. "The biggest attended event for us ever. The most bodies in the building ever. We're all predicting the biggest pay-per-view event ever in Canada."
So sayeth the head man of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the outfit that has successfully cleaned up mixed martial arts and served it to a devoted, growing audience. Whether you consider that a wonderful thing or a sure sign of civilization's decline probably depends on whether or not you're an 18-to 35-year-old male.
In any case, they're finally here.
After many false starts, the UFC's initial Canadian foray comes at the Bell Centre in Montreal, where local hero Georges St. Pierre takes on one of those who have previously defeated him, Matt Serra. A grudge match, then, which inspired strong feelings even before Serra started calling St. Pierre "frenchy" and "Pepé Le Pew."
The tickets sold out pretty much instantly, and the television numbers will undoubtedly be huge — both reasons why White pledges his undying love for Canadians.
"We always wanted to get here sooner," White says. "The amount of fans in Canada is just mind-boggling."
The roadblocks to crossing the great unguarded border — once upon a time, the Canadian dollar, regulatory issues in some jurisdictions (mixed martial arts is still not legal in Ontario, for instance), St. Pierre's injuries and career path — have now all been overcome.
White says Toronto is next on his hit list — though don't hold your breath waiting for provincial approval — and, of course, for him all of this is just one more step on the road to global domination.
"As human beings it's in our DNA man," he says. "That's the one reason why I think this sport will be the biggest sport in the world. I'm not talking about the biggest combat sport — I'm talking about being bigger than the NFL, bigger than soccer, bigger than anything.
"I take two guys and I put them in the octagon and they can use any martial art that they want. That crosses all culture barriers, all language barriers. People watch it and they like it."
That said, in the year or so since the biggest money event in UFC history — last spring's match between Chuck Liddell and Quinton (Rampage) Jackson in Las Vegas — the UFC has suffered a couple of what a less-confident person than White might acknowledge as minor setbacks.
The long talked-about television deal with HBO in the United States still hasn't materialized.
Reportedly there were money issues — and perhaps some minor differences of corporate culture, given how White describes it. "If I had to hear one more time how many [expletive] Emmys they'd won, I was going to jump out the window. I'm kicking their ass on pay-per-view, no matter how many Emmys they've won."
White says HBO or someone else will soon emerge to provide the UFC with a television platform between their regular free outlet, Spike, and the 10 pay-per-view shows they produce every year.
That won't be CBS, however.
In one of the oddest pairings in TV history, that network has chosen to cast its lot with one Kimbo Slice, a fighter unaffiliated with the UFC, who originally made a name for himself in homemade fight videos shot in his backyard and posted on YouTube.com.
Slice is a large personality, to be sure, but it's still hard to imagine him in prime time, since he represents the tough-man, anything-goes bar-brawl image UFC has worked so hard to shed.
"I think it's horrible," White says. "It sucks, to be honest with you. They're going after the freak show aspect which is everything we stayed away from.
"When we started to build this thing, it was all about the sport, about the real athletes. It sucks that CBS is going that route. CBS doesn't know anything about MMA. Everything they know about MMA is from me being in there talking to them about it."
What the CBS move, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban's initial forays into the sport, and the attempts by the Bodog entertainment and gambling company ("a cocky, arrogant goof," White says of Bodog founder Calvin Ayre) to stage competing shows would seem to suggest is an inevitable fragmentation.
Just as boxing is divided up between powerful rival promoters, usually to its detriment, you knew that eventually others would want a piece of UFC's pie.
Bring 'em on, White says.
"I think that they looked at the model that we had. I'm flattered that we make it look that easy — as though anybody could just jump into this thing. We bought this thing when nobody wanted to touch it. It was dead. Business people were calling us jackasses. They said we were morons," he says.
"Now, as long as I'm here, there's nobody that's going to kick my ass."
