Renowned Nigerian sports promoter, Dr. Adrian Ogun, has called for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to be staged on African soil following the emergence of three African world champions, including Francis Ngannou (a heavyweight) from Cameroon and Israel Adesanya (at middleweight) and Kamaru Usman (welterweight) from Nigeria.
Speaking on organizing fight on the continent, Ogun who is the chairman of Streamcent, a digital platform which streams sports and entertainment videos believes staging a fight on African soil will bring in a high revenue for everyone involved in the organization. He had previously made a case for hosting of world title boxing fight in Nigeria.
“Our African pay per view model for a UFC fight on African soil means a huge number of Africa’s more than 250 million smart phone users can watch the fight and the extra revenue more than makes up for any shortfall in venue ticket sales. This is a ‘win – win’ situation for the UFC promotion, ordinary fight fans seeking affordable viewing prices and our African UFC champions wanting to showcase their talents to mass audiences of all classes in Africa,” he said.
Dana White, the CEO of UFC, recently confirmed in a podcast his desire to bring a UFC fight to Africa both in recognition of the current trio of African UFC champions and because it fulfils his own long held personal ambition to emulate the Ali v Foreman ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ world boxing championship fight held in the DRC in 1974.
