It might have been the high altitude in Mexico City, but apart from the main fights of the evening, there have been quite a few lackluster affairs at last Saturday’s UFC 188 pay-per-view event. Particularly Cathal Pendred vs. Augusto Montano and Tecia Torres vs. Angela Hill raised lots of boos from the disappointed Mexican crowd.
UFC president Dana White usually very quick to criticize a booing crowd, told members of the media at the post-fight press conference, that he agreed with every single boo this time.
“It was an educated crowd. You know how happy that makes me to be in Mexico City, Mexico, and when a guy steps over and gets side control, they cheer? And when they were booing, they deserved to boo. I didn’t disagree with one f—ing boo that happened tonight. When they were booing, [the fighters] deserved to be booed.”
A reporter asked White, if he thought of the Mexican audience as one of the tougher crowds of late. But White denied:
“It was a very educated crowd, and a huge moment for us — huge moment for me because I’ve been waiting for so long to get into Mexico. And then when the main event started, there was not one…when this thing sold out, when you talk about a sell out, there’s a lot of times we’ll sell out an arena and there’ll be some single seats left. There wasn’t one single seat left in this arena. Completely sold out. And in the main event, I don’t know if any of you looked around, packed to the rafters and everybody had their lights on. It was awesome, man. It wasn’t a tough crowd, it was an educated crowd. Amazing.”
The UFC managed to pack 20,000 people into Mexico City’s Arena Ciudad de Mexico, for their big heavyweight title unification bout between new undisputed champion Fabricio Werdum and Cain Velasquez.
See the full UFC 188 event coverage here.
(Transcription taken from MMA Fighting.com)