UFC president Dana White excited to be back in Montreal after decade-long absence

UFC President Dana White attends the ceremonial weigh-in for a UFC mixed martial arts event in Elmont, N.Y., July 15, 2022. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Gregory Payan)

Thousands of crazed fans lined up outside Montreal’s Bell Centre for hours on Thursday, despite grey skies and cool temperatures, with the hopes of catching a glimpse of their sports heroes.

However, they weren’t there to see Montreal Canadiens stars like Cole Caufield or Nick Suzuki, but rather Belal Muhammad, Jose Aldo and other mixed-martial artists for the official UFC 315 press conference ahead of the main card scheduled for Saturday night.

“That was just a little bit of a quarter of the bowl and you heard the energy,” said UFC president and CEO Dana White in a one-on-one interview with The Canadian Press following the press conference. “This place is going to be packed, sold out on Saturday. The Canadian fans are awesome.

“They always bring incredible energy. Saturday is going to be fun. It’s great to be back in Montreal.”

It has been just over a decade since Montreal last hosted a card held by the American promotion.

That was UFC 186, headlined by a flyweight title bout between champion Demetrious Johnson and challenger Kyoji Horiguchi on Apr. 25, 2015.

“They deserve it,” said White. “Some of the most fun times in my career were when we were breaking into Canada back in the day, getting (professional mixed martial arts) legalized in Ontario (in 2010).

“As we started to move around, whether to Montreal, the East Coast, West Coast, and everything else in between, Canada remains one my favourite places to go.”

Nevertheless, 415 total UFC fight cards and 3,668 days will have passed between that spring night ten years ago and Saturday’s UFC 315 fight card featuring title bouts between welterweight champion Muhammad and fifth-ranked Jack Della Maddalena and flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko against France’s Manon Fiorot.

It’s a far cry from the six UFC events held at Bell Centre in a five-year span, between April 2008 and March 2013, four of those cards headlined by three-time welterweight champion and Canadian mixed martial arts legend Georges St-Pierre.

“As we were growing the sport and the company in the early days, there were so many of the guys, from the Chuck Liddells to the Georges St-Pierres that were so instrumental in taking this thing global,” said White. “I don’t know if there will ever be anybody who has an impact up here the way that St-Pierre did.”

Saturday’s card is also the first being held on Canadian soil since Donald Trump was re-elected American president last November.

It comes amid growing political tensions between Canada and the United States, as Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state.

“I don’t even think about that at all,” said White. “That doesn’t have an impact on what we do.”

White points rather to other world events, such as the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, as far greater hurdles that the UFC has had to recently contend with.

“When you’re a global business, there’s always going to be things every four years, or even every two years, that affect your business,” said White. “None of that stuff bothers me. We just do our thing.”

The animosity existing between the two nations does risk, however, spilling into the octagon come Saturday.

During his Wednesday news conference, American welterweight Charles Radtke referenced the ongoing booing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Canadian sporting events in recent months, saying “when you all boo the national anthem, somebody’s gonna have to pay for that.”

He went on to trash-talk Canada, offering an expletive-laden message to any fan at Bell Centre to jeer him during his fight with Mike Malott of Burlington, Ont.

Malott will not be the only Canadian fighting on home soil Saturday.

Montreal’s Aiemann Zahabi is set to face off against former two-time featherweight champion Jose Aldo of Brazil in a bantamweight fight.

“I’m proud to be fighting Jose Aldo,” said Zahabi on Thursday. “He’s a legend of the sport. I’m even more proud to do it here at home in Montreal.

“I know that he said he was disappointed in his last performance, but it’s a good thing my brother Firas and I prepared for the best Jose Aldo possible. I’m excited.”

Zahabi will have extra support in his corner in the form of St-Pierre, who Zahabi has turned to for advice and guidance in preparation for his bout with the 38-year-old UFC Hall of Famer.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2025.