@MichaelCoughlin
The UFC has officially announced that they will be running UFC 193 at the 55,000 seat Etihad Arena in Melbourne, Australia for a PPV headlined by Robbie Lawler defending his UFC Welterweight Championship against Carlos Condit. Also on the PPV, which airs November 15th in the Australia (which makes it approximately three days earlier here in the States) is the rematch of Mark Hunt and Bigfoot Silva – who redefined amazing heavyweight slugfests the last time they fought, a fight which ended as a draw.
This is actually quite a big deal for the UFC as it is their first time in the market and they are running a massive stadium. The only other time they ever ran a stadium this size was when they were in Toronto and had Georges St. Pierre as the semi-local hero. This show will not have a national icon headlining.
What it will have is a high-level welterweight title match and a rematch of one of the greatest fights in UFC history. One would also expect at least one more title match to be added to the show but that would probably depend upon the health of various fighters and champions. Robert Whittaker is slated to face Michael Bisping – whose wife is Australian and he considers it home territory. (Whittaker is actually from Australia though so …)
At one time it was the thought that perhaps Ronda Rousey would be on this show as it would make it instantly a giant deal both in Australia and here in America. As it stands it is a good paper view but hardly anything that is record setting. Still there is a very good chance the company will sell an unreal number of tickets as it is one of the biggest untapped markets left in the world for the UFC. And it is a market they have been dying to get into for sometime.
