“In the next two months I will reveal the future. Not from the UFC, from fighting. Over the next two months I will reveal the future of fighting.”
That was UFC CEO Dana White in an interview with ESPN just after UFC 236 in April 2019. He was, of course, referring to the UFC Apex, which on Saturday will host a UFC Fight Night event billed as UFC Vegas 100 (4 p.m. ). ET, ESPN+).
As usual with UFC events, numbering conventions can be tricky. The Apex even passed the century mark for UFC events earlier this year. And even this event is simultaneously billed as UFC Fight Night: Magny vs. Prates, UFC Fight Night 247 and UFC on ESPN+ 105.
Yet here we are at a milestone of sorts for the facility that ultimately truly changed the way the UFC operates. That makes it a good time to pause for reflection and ask ourselves: How has the Apex shaped the future of fighting – at least in the UFC – and what have we learned about where things are going?
First of all, we have to recognize that there is one party that loves these events more than any other, and that is the people behind the camera. When I spoke with UFC Executive Vice President of Operations and Production Craig Borsari a few months ago, he spoke highly of the convenience and efficiency of having an in-house arena that is also its own production studio.
“The Apex has been an incredible facility for us for all the reasons I’m sure you know about COVID,” Borsari said. “But it also wasn’t just the physical space that allowed us to put on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and ‘Dana White’s Contender Series,’ but from a production perspective it also allowed us to produce it without having to have a mobile unit roll up. and configure that truck so that we can do remote production from that mobile unit. It’s aligned to our standards and tailor-made for the way we produce our live events. So it became more plug and play, which is just a huge advantage in terms of efficiency in the way we approach producing the shows.
This is certainly one of the main reasons why the UFC has been reluctant to leave the Apex and hit the road again for UFC Fight Night events, even as COVID restrictions were lifted across the country.
In 2023, the UFC hosted 17 UFC Fight Night events (not including UFC on ESPN or UFC on ABC fight cards). Of those, 11 were held at the UFC Apex. So far in 2024, there have been 16 UFC events at the Apex. And while company executives have said there are plans to bring these events to more places, UFC VP David Shaw also made it clear last week that the Apex events will likely never disappear completely.
“I think it makes a lot of sense for us to play home games and be in the Apex where we can just turn off the lights and lock the door,” Shaw told reporters at the post-fight press conference in Edmonton on Saturday . “So will we ever return to pre-COVID or no Apex? I don’t think so. But I think we’ll find the right balance for us.”
One result of these Apex events is the creation of a whole new level of UFC programming that didn’t exist before the pandemic. Once upon a time, there were essentially only two types of UFC events: pay-per-views and fight nights. Fans and fighters both knew the former was for important things like title fights and real stars, premium content at premium prices. The latter? That was before the other things. Possible contenders. Debuting fighters. In general, many names that are unknown to most MMA fans. Anyway, it was included with a cable or streaming service subscription, so it didn’t cost anything extra to watch.
Now there is another layer to that layering. There are UFC Fight Night events like last week’s event in Edmonton, headlined by one former champion in the main event and another in the co-main event, with an arena full of fans cheering them on. And then there are Apex events like this Saturday’s offering, which has a few recognizable names and some solid matchups, but doesn’t feature a single fighter in the top 10 of any division.
There is also a big difference in feel between these two types of fight nights. You turn on the TV and see 15,000 fans shouting their approval while a fighter’s walkout music blasts through the speakers at deafening volume, it feels important. It feels such as major live sports.
Instead, watching a fighter make the extremely short walk to the cage as the sound of tepid applause echoes through a mostly empty building almost feels like an exhibition. The experienced viewer knows, without needing to be told, that if this one were really important, the UFC would have taken it elsewhere to sell thousands of tickets.
This is not lost on fighters. In February, when Renato Moicano was set to co-headline one of these events, he shrugged it off by telling us that “nobody cares” about these events.
“No one likes the Apex, my brother,” Moicano said. “You can ask anyone. The fans hate the Apex. I’m pretty sure the fighters don’t like the Apex either. … I know the UFC has so many fighters right now [has] to fight so many battles. It makes sense for the Apex and ESPN. If you ask me if I like fighting at the Apex, no, brother.”
Still, it all makes sense for a live events company that puts on a show almost every weekend of the year. The Apex eliminates a lot of travel costs. There’s no need to fly people around the world and shell out money for hotel rooms when many fighters already live in Las Vegas, where they can take advantage of the UFC Performance Institute while having plenty of coaches and training partners to choose from. If there’s a last-minute fight card shakeup that leaves a hole in the lineup, it helps to be just a short drive from the venue. Careers in this sport are built on less.
The fact that the UFC is currently working on an Apex expansion tells us that these events aren’t going anywhere. Seeing that the place had been outfitted with something that looked more like a real arena with a real crowd for one of WWE’s NXT Battleground events earlier this year, fans got a glimpse of another possible future for the Apex.
In the meantime, it still feels like the place the UFC returns to when it has something to show us that isn’t as good as the other stuff. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. For the UFC, it is certainly cost-effective. Which, let’s face it, was probably always going to be the real future of fighting.
