Having just announced the opening of a dedicated Canadian office, the UFC is already hard at work in Asia. China and India are two countries high on the target list and White revealed this week that the UFC is to open an office in China, although he did not say when.

"What we've used [until now] to go into Europe and even Australia is our UK office but we're looking right now [at opening] an office in China," he said during a press conference this week to announce the opening of the Canadian office.

"We're there now. Lorenzo has been in China for the last 10 days, and we're going to make it happen… Asia understands martial arts. They've been practicing martial arts for thousands of years. It's going to be a lot easier."

The UFC recently put a deal in place with Inner Mongolia Television, a major broadcaster in China. Having learned a lesson from The Ultimate Fighter, White and the UFC see the reality show as the gateway to new regions.

According to White, ‘TUF Middle East’ and ‘TUF Canada’ are “currently being worked on” and ‘TUF China’ will follow after that. He also mentioned - and not for the first time - India as being on the target list for market penetration, pointing out that the country has hundreds of millions of young men in the UFC‘s key demographic.

How native Chinese promotions such as Art of War will react to news of UFC expansion on their turf is unknown, but if the UK experience is anything to go by it could actually help rather than hinder domestic promtoers. The UFC garners press attention that regional promotions can only dream of and in the long run it all serves to highlight awareness of MMA as a whole.