Yahoo: Visit to Cowboy Stadium has White dreaming

[Clark Kent]

03-19-2010 07:40 PM:

Dana White has been asked about holding an outdoor fight for years. Until recently, he expressed interest in the possibility of a fight at Aloha Stadium in Hawaii or even Fenway Park. Then around the holidays, he began to say it probably wouldn't happen because he didn't think the intimacy of UFC events would play well in a huge stadium. Well, the man has changed his mind in the past -- just look at his previous takes on Tito Ortiz and Kimbo Slice -- and it looks like a visit to Dallas has him thinking big again.

White and his buddy UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta road tripped to Dallas to take in the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey fight. White, like everyone else in the crowd of 50,994, came away wowed with the experience of Cowboys Stadium.

"I would love to do a fight there. Yep, and I'm Mr. Anti-Stadium," White told Carlos Arias from the Orange Couty Register. "Now that I experienced that [expletive] place, let me tell you what, it's incredible. It's incredible. The nicest stadium I have seen in my entire life."

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White said there was also a different energy in the stadium. It wasn't like a lot boxing matches where you can hear a pin drop during the break in between rounds.

"Not only was it a legit crowd, it was a different crowd other than boxing. It was [expletive] ... when I walked in that place, I got [expletive] mobbed," said White. "It was all young people and people that like UFC and it was a good crowd."

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Yahoo! Sports Kevin Iole backed that up saying that White got one of the loudest roars when celebrities in attendance were put on the big screen at the stadium. White's new attitude is probably reserved just for an event at Cowboys Stadium. Boxing is going to try Yankee Stadium during the summer. I can't imagine a fight card working in any other stadium without Cowboys Stadium's best feature, the 60-yard high definition big screen.

White also confirms there is no UFC show on Apr. 17 in Nashville. So no counterprogramming effort against Strikeforce's CBS card. But he was tight lipped on details of Tito Ortiz's health and what happens during Season 11 of "The Ultimate Fighter." Rumors emerged last week that indicated Ortiz exited the show in the middle of the season and that Rich Franklin would step in against Chuck Liddell at UFC 115 in June.



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Cagewriter is an MMA blog edited by Steve Cofield.