Speaking to British boxing promoter Eddie Hearn and former world champion boxer Tony Bellew on their “Talk the Talk” podcast, White revealed his plans for “Fight Island” are ready to go, with the first event set to take place on June 27.
“I’m hoping that the first fight should be probably maybe July 25. That’s the date I’m shooting for,” he said, before correcting himself later in the show.
“I made a mistake earlier when I told you guys about ‘Fight Island.’ The first fight on ‘Fight Island’ is probably going to be around June 27 – not July.”
If that date holds firm, that would mean the first show on “Fight Island” would feature a main event between lightweight contenders Dustin Poirier and Dan Hooker, who are already booked to fight in the headline bout on that date.
It would be an explosive main event to kick off the UFC’s most outlandish plan yet but, according to the UFC supremo, it was far from an easy undertaking.
“Let me tell you about Fight Island,” he began. “Fight Island is so f*cking expensive and so f*cking crazy and almost impossible to pull off.
“When you’re talking about planes flying people in and you have to quarantine people and all these things that we’re going through – it’s f*cking insane to be even trying to do this. But I promise you, we will do it and we will pull it off.
“I believe in doing this, it’s going to help grow the sport immensely, it’s going to help financially and many different ways it’s going to help build the sport and I just know that we can do it.
“But let me tell you how hard it is and how crazy this whole thing has been, man. While people were laying in their f*cking pools enjoying the pandemic, I’ve been over here smoking my executive staff. Burning these guys out, man. It’s crazy.”
