UFC CEO Dana White was left delighted with the end result of UFC 306, following the promotion’s hugely successful show at The Sphere.
Heading into the blockbuster card, White had made no secret of the fact he wanted the event to go down as one of the best in sporting history. Post fight, he heaped praise on the team that brought the whole evening together. Speaking to the media he said:
“Literally the whole thing was seamless. It went perfect. We didn't have a lot of time to rehearse. That was our big, you know, worry coming in here but they nailed it. The team absolutely nailed it. I saw it first, (when) it was like 50% resolution. Then I was in here the other day; Thursday was our first full rehearsal.
“Thursday was our first full rehearsal for that show, so, the team killed. It was absolutely amazing.”
In the main event of the night, Merab Dvalishvili was crowned the new UFC Bantamweight world champion as he outworked and defeated Sean O’Malley by way of unanimous decision. ‘Suga’ is known for his flashy style but it seemed to be missing from his game throughout the contest. White admitted he too felt the former champion was off the pace. He said:
“He looked flat. He didn't look sharp. He didn't look crisp until the last round. He hurt him with that body shot. He knew he hurt him with the body shot and he kept going and trying to finish but yeah. I mean, I looked at the punch stats and there was like six in a couple of the rounds.”
The co-main event saw Valentina Shevchenko shut out Alexa Grasso and reclaim the Flyweight title. Although it was a technical affair, the manner in which ‘Bullet’ got her hand raised was not the most fan friendly. White joked that the way the fights play out are out of his control, no matter how much he has put into the production.
“You can put on $20 million worth of production, but you can't control the fights. They're going to be what they are. So I cannot let that drive me crazy.”
The surging Diego Lopes picked up the biggest win of his career, so far, with a unanimous decision win over Brian Ortega. His explosive starts to contests continued at The Sphere when Lopes hurt Ortega extremely early on. The UFC CEO was surprised that the Brazilian opted to take the fight to the floor but was impressed with the performance nevertheless.
“(What was) fascinating to me was he hurt him, drops him right out the gates and then jumps on top of him instead of having him stand back up and trying to finish him, almost like he wanted to submit him or something, you know? I don't know if that was the case, but I think he made the fight a lot tougher than it had to be for him.
“I think a lot of people were sleeping on him because of the Ige fight and yeah, he definitely put that behind him.”
You can watch the full interview, below:
