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UFC 306 at Sphere in Las Vegas may have been one of the most expensive cards to produce but the gamble paid off.

On Tuesday, TKO Group Holdings revealed that the event headlined by Sean O’Malley vs. Merab Dvalishvili ended up as the highest grossing card in UFC history across several major metrics.

First and foremost, UFC 306 produced a $ 22 million live gate, which smashed the previous record at $ 17.7 million when UFC 205 landed at Madison Square Garden in New York for the first time back in 2016. UFC CEO Dana White previously revealed that the show cost over $ 20 million to produce so the live gate alone covers those costs.

UFC 306 also served as the highest grossing single event held at Sphere since the massive $ 2.3 billion arena first opened in 2023.

Meanwhile, UFC 306 also produced the highest grossing sponsorship sales for the company, which included a marquee branding sponsorship with Riyadh Season — the Saudi Arabia funded celebration headed up by Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of the country’s General Entertainment Authority.

Additional records were set for the highest grossing sales for VIP experiences, which is handled through On Location — an event service company owned by Endeavor, the primary shareholder in TKO Group Holdings.

UFC also touted the event for having the highest grossing merchandise sales in company history as well.

Despite all the success produced by UFC 306 at Sphere, TKO Group Holdings’ executives and White have both said the event was “one and done.” While the cost to produce a show there plays some part in not returning to Sphere, the UFC also maintains an exclusive agreement with MGM properties in Las Vegas, which is why all major pay-per-views are held at T-Mobile Arena — an MGM owned venue.

It was only after MGM booked a Canelo Alvarez fight at T-Mobile Arena that same weekend that White was able to break free from that deal for the one-night only card held at Sphere, which is owned by the Dolan family — the same company that owns properties like Madison Square Garden and the NBA’s New York Knicks.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Chris Eubank Jr. laid into Frank Warren, Eddie Hearn, and almost every other promoter in boxing Wednesday afternoon.

Eubank faces Kamil Szeremeta on the undercard of the upcoming Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol pay-per-view in October, but at the London press conference for the event, Eubank’s harshest words were for boxing promoters Frank Warren, Kalle Sauerland, and Eddie Hearn.

Back in July, the former IBO super-middleweight champion signed a promotional deal with Boxxer, eschewing some of the bigger promoters in the sport, and when asked about it, Eubank didn’t mince words.

“Why Boxxer? Because every other promoter out here is a scumbag,” Eubank said. “That’s why. You’ve got Frank Warren behind me, he’s been lying and cheating his way through boxing for the last couple decades, sued me for a couple hundred thousand a few years ago, so obviously I was never going to go with him. The guy is a scumbag.

“Kalle Sauerland [Eubank’s former promoter] had me locked up in a terrible contract for the last few years, squeezing money out of me at every opportunity. Scumbag.

“Eddie Hearn, Frank Smith, they did everything they could to try and make this fight against Conor Benn still go ahead after knowing that he was on steroids. Scumbags.

“I would say the only promoter that I know for sure isn’t a scumbag is his excellency Turki Alalshikh. This is a man who isn’t trying to take money from fighters. He isn’t trying to use lawyers and accountants to lock fighters up in slave contracts.”

Alalshikh is Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia, and has invested significant funds into boxing in recent years, a move which his detractors claim serves to sportswash the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the global stage.

Unsurprisingly, Warren — who was in attendance along with Hearn — did not take kindly to Eubank’s comments. Warren previously promoted Eubank and later sued him for breach of contract, and the British promoter said he’s ready to get his legal team involved again for Eubank’s inflammatory statements.

“The bottom line of it is, it was very simple, he was sued by me for a legal breach of a contract and I was successful in suing him and he paid substantial damages,” Warren told talkSPORT after the press conference. “What he can’t accept is what’s legal and what’s not. And as regarding what he’s just said, I’m going to keep it short and sweet: he’s gonna get sued again for the comments that he’s made publicly…

“He will be sued and he will have a problem over that and anybody else who says it, they can get in that queue.”

**UPDATE**

A few hours after the press conference, Eubank released a statement apologizing and retracting his comments. Warren simultaneously released a statement to the retraction, accepting Eubank’s apology.

“Following today’s press conference for the historic Riyadh Season event on October 12th, I would like to retract my inaccurate statements and offer my apologies to Frank Warren, Eddie Hearn and Kalle Sauerland,” Eubank said. “I now wish to focus purely on boxing and preparing for a huge fight in Riyadh next month.”

“I accept Chris’s apology and retraction. I too have said things before and apologize to him also if any criticism of him has upset him in the past,” Warren stated. “I look forward to seeing him compete on this huge Riyadh Season card. We look ahead to some potentially massive bouts in the future.”

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Fighter picks
| BJPenn.com

The leader of the Diaz army is back (hopefully).

Multiple sources confirmed to MMAmania.com today (Weds., Sept. 25, 2024), that Nick Diaz vs. Vicente Luque has been rescheduled for the final Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) pay-per-view (PPV) event of 2024, UFC 310, which goes down inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The pair of veteran welterweights were originally scheduled to throw down last month at UFC Abu Dhabi; however, Diaz pulled out of the fight due to travel issues, which made sense because Diaz and the Middle East would have probably never happened.

Diaz, 41, was last in action against Robbie Lawler at UFC 266, where he was stopped via TKO. The older brother of Nate Diaz has not won a fight since UFC 137 in 2011, where he beat down B.J. Penn. Diaz was also put on the shelf for years because of a dumb marijuana suspension.

Luque, 32, has not competed since Joaquin Buckley bludgeoned him in the co-main event of UFC Atlantic City (watch highlights). “The Silent Assassin” has lost three of his last five fights, two via finish.

UFC 310 does not currently have a main event and there are only two other announced matchups: Anthony Smith vs. Dominick Reyes and Virna Janiroba vs. Tatiana Suarez.

To checkout UFC’s upcoming schedule of events click here.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Aljamain Sterling started his MMA journey with Jon Jones, and was blown away — for multiple reasons — with the success of the now-UFC heavyweight champion.

Sterling and Jones went to college together early on before the former bantamweight champ transferred to a different school. After going through old school social media, “Funkmaster” saw Jones training in mixed martial arts and wondered how he could be a part of it. Sterling not only trained with Jones, but he also said that he would go out on the town with him, and was stunned to see Jones partying close to his fights in the octagon — and still winning convincingly.

“Suspect No. 1, and I got to see this first hand, was Jon Jones,” Sterling told Demetrious Johnson. “When we were in college together, and he was in the UFC, and I was still at school at Courtland… some way, some how, I messaged him on MySpace, and he’s training right down the f*cking block from my college. I hit him up like, ‘Yo, I see you doing the grappling stuff and the fighting, and I always thought it was cool. I think I could be good at this. Can I check it out? How do I check it out?’ He was like, ‘I’m training here,’ I was like, ‘Bro, I go to school right here.’ He was like, ‘Come down,’ so I came down and he was like… ‘Man, you’re not going to show up.’ I was like, alright, bet. I showed up the next day, and I haven’t stopped training since then.

“But I would see this man, a week before his fight, him at the bar… going nuts. In my head, I was like, no sex, no drinking, no smoking, and I just thought the way of [Mike] Tyson and [Muhammad] Ali and those guys. That’s what they said, don’t do it if you want to be a champion. I’m like, OK. And then I would see him and was like, I don’t get it — and then that weekend he would just murder a guy on International TV. I was like, ‘He’s doing something right.’”

Sterling recently moved up to featherweight after dropping the 135-pound title to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 in August 2023. In his first appearance in a new weight class, Sterling dominated Calvin Kattar for a unanimous decision at UFC 300 in April. He was slated to face Movsar Evloev at UFC 307 next weekend, but an injury forced Sterling to withdraw.

After seeing Jones’ success, plus learning his body and himself over the many years of fighting at a high level, Sterling has found a system to enjoy training camp a little bit more than the absolute grind it can be at the gym on the road to a UFC fight.

“I went from cold turkey, to like six weeks — nothing changed in my fights,” Sterling said. “[Then it was] four weeks, and then I got to two weeks and it was like, ‘It’s all mental, baby.’ Just put the damn work in, and you’re good.”

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UFC

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Former ONE two-division champion Reinier de Ridder didn’t wait long to book his octagon debut as he clashes with Gerald Meerschaert in a battle of submission specialists at the UFC Fight Night card scheduled on Nov. 9 with the event taking place at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas.

Multiple people with knowledge of the promotion’s plans confirmed the news to MMA Fighting on Wednesday following an initial report from Eurosport.

The fight booking comes following news that de Ridder signed with the UFC after spending the past five years competing in ONE Championships. During his time with the Singapore based promotion, de Ridder claimed both the light heavyweight and middleweight titles before actually losing both belts to current ONE three-division champion Anatoly Malykhin.

Following the conclusion of his contract with ONE, de Ridder picked up a quick TKO win in UAE Warriors before signing with the UFC.

With 11 of his 17 wins coming by submission, de Ridder is best known for his ground game and he’ll test that against Meerschaert, who holds the record for the most submission wins in UFC history with 11.

Meerschaert comes into the fight off two straight wins — both by submission — including his latest victory against Edmen Shahbazyan back in August, which earned him a Performance of the Night bonus.

The fight between de Ridder and Meerschaert joins a growing lineup on Nov. 9 with a main event still to be determined.

Mike Heck contributed to this report.

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