If we’ve learned anything over the past few years it is that Canada is the place for the UFC to go if they want to do huge business. Now that they’ve held an event in Toronto, attention seems to have shifted to when and if the promotion will ever do an event in Ottawa. The Toronto Sun caught up with Ottawa mayor Jim Watson who shared his thoughts:
“We wouldn’t really have a role in attracting something like that, it’s up to the UFC and I guess it’s very competitive to get a UFC fight like they did in Toronto,”
…
“I personally wouldn’t go see a UFC fight. It’s not my thing, but obviously it’s very popular amongst a large segment of the population and now that the province has allowed it to take place in Ontario I’m sure there’s an entrepreneur out there who is going try and get matches here in Ottawa,”
The piece also crosses into the realm of pure comedy as a regional promoter talks about how the UFC was “not interested” in his attempts to co-promote a show with them. Still, the UFC’s Marc Ratner did give hope to their eventual arrival in Ottawa:
“We know we’d do well in Ottawa,” he said Tuesday. “But we have shows coming up in Vancouver, Las Vegas, Brazil. We have a certain number of shows, but we know we’d do well in Ottawa and we hope to be there in the future.”
I’m sure it will happen eventually but I’d actually be shocked if it happens before a return trip to Toronto.