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At the start of the year, there were three Mexican champions in the UFC: Brandon Moreno, Yair Rodríguez and Alexa Grasso. To commemorate such a historic time in the promotion, UFC president Dana White revealed he would get each of them their own custom belts.
“So, there’s a guy down in Mexico that does this [customizes shoes] and wants to do belts,” said White during an interview with Joe La Puma of Complex. “I have three Mexican world champions right now. What they want do is they want to, like, customize the belts, like take our belts and paint ’em the Mexican flag and it was all these cool concepts for the belts. And I’m actually going to do it. So, these fighters would have a one-of-one custom Mexican championship belt.”
White did indeed get his Mexican champions their own belts, which was first given to Rodríguez ahead of his unification against Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 290 this past July. And now, Grasso has hers on the way from White and the same Oaxacan artists who crafted the original, Jacobo and María Ángeles.
Dana White to present Alexa Grasso with a custom UFC belt
On Wednesday, Dana White shared a video of himself alongside Ricardo Ángeles with the belt for Alexa Grasso.
“So, his company, which is based down in Mexico, made this belt for Alexa Grasso,” said White. “This will be her championship belt. She’ll have the other one, but we’re going to present her with this one. She’s going to defend the title against [Valentina] Shevchenko on Mexican Independence Day on September 16.”
Ricardo also shared a few words on the significance of these custom belts.
“One of the most important tasks of the Jacobo and María Ángeles Workshop is to keep popular art relevant to new generations,” said Ricardo on Instagram. “Sports, beyond being a projection platform for art, have become living heroes in this dimension. Sports and the arts have a profound relationship that generates recreation in the being, they stimulate us internally and collectively.”
Grasso is set to face Valentina Shevchenko again after dethroning the ‘Bullet’ via submission at UFC 285 this past March. Though she hoped to have her first defense in Mexico, the newly crowned UFC champion should have plenty of support in Las Vegas as the promotion hosts Noche UFC next Saturday.
Next UFC trip to Mexico?
Despite previously having a trio of Mexican champions, Dana White was unsure of when the promotion would travel to the country again for an event. The most recent one ended in disaster in 2019 when Yair Rodríguez and Jeremy Stephens fought for all of 15 seconds until an accidental eye poke rendered ‘Lil Heaten’ unfit to continue.
Since then, the UFC has yet to travel to Mexico, but that could change. Earlier this year, the promotion announced it was building a Performance Institute over there, which White revealed was nearing completion.
“We would obviously love to get back to Mexico and [host an event], but I don’t know if it’s in the plans right now,” said White at the UFC San Antonio post-fight press conference. “We’re building the P.I. down there right now, and wait until you guys see that. I can’t wait to share that with you, actually; you know, the renderings for the UFC PI in Mexico — it’s going be badass.
“But we’re not looking an [event],” continued White. “But you’re right, you’re not wrong. We got three Mexican champions finally. We probably should be heading to Mexico or at least doing a ‘Cinco de Mayo,’ but that didn’t work out either.”
Perhaps with a successful defense, Grasso can convince White and Co. to go to Mexico by next year.
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