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24/03/10 - Dana: "We want to bring the big fights back to Madison Square Garden"

“We want to bring the big fights back to Madison Square Garden,” UFC president Dana White told a packed press conference at New York’s Radio City Music Hall today. The statement was met with applause by fans in attendance, most of whom were proud New Yorkers and avid fight fans.

Madison Square Garden is renowned in the boxing world, being something of a Mecca in the sport. Staging an event there would be a significant milestone for the UFC, and not just because it would mean that the state of New York had finally capitulated to the MMA revolution.

“I’m not frustrated,” White says of still having states in the US that still have not legalised MMA. “We just have to get out there and educate the politicians about this sport. I am very confident that New York will happen soon.

“Its in the [New York State] budget, so as long as it stays in there [when it goes to the Department of State] then it should happen very soon. Madison Square Garden, that’s where we are going. To go to a historical place like MSG and have a big fight is what we really want to do. We want to bring big fights back to Madison Square Garden.”

White added that the recently-launched UFC Gym franchise will also soon be making its way to the Big Apple. “There will be a gym here in New York,” he said to a chorus of cheers. “They will be in all the major cities. The first gym was very successful and honestly we can’t crank them out fast enough.”

The UFC president was flanked by welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre at the conference and he commented on the prospect of the French-Canadian putting his career on hiatus to wrestle for his country at the 2012 Olympic Games.

“It would be great if GSP got into the Olympics and brought back a medal for his country, that would be big. It would suck for us for the time he was gone from the UFC but if he made that decision we would sit down and work it out. I think it would be big for him, for us, and for the sport,” White said.