After 20-Year Hiatus, UFC Returns to Miami With Pereira-Adesanya Bout

On Saturday, April 8, Miami will host an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event for the first time in two decades. But, according to UFC President Dana White, the Magic City won't have to wait as long for the next one.

"We’ll definitely be coming back to Miami," White said at the pre-fight press conference at the newly named Kaseya Center on Thursday. "Last time we came to Miami was 20 years ago, and we did a gate of like $446,000...We came back this time, and we did one of the all-time biggest gates. This is the biggest gate outside of Las Vegas and outside The Garden."

The UFC has held fights in other venues in South Florida over the years, including at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood in 2015 and the BB&T Center in Sunrise in 2019. However, this weekend marks the mixed martial arts championship's first return to Miami-Dade County since April 25, 2003, when Matt Hughes defeated Sean Sherk in a bid for the welterweight title at the former American Airlines Arena.

During the UFC287 main event, Alex Pereira will be defending his middleweight title in a rematch against Israel Adesanya. Last November, Pereira seized the title from Adesanya after knocking him out in the fifth and final round at Madison Square Garden in New York. Until then, Adesanya was beating Pereira on all three of the judges' scorecards. 

For many locals, all eyes will be on the co-main event that will feature welterweights Gilbert Burns and the so-called "King of Miami," Jorge Masvidal, who was born and raised in South Florida.

This will be Masvidal's first fight since he allegedly punched his former-training-partner-turned-rival Colby Covington (who also resides in Miami) outside Papi Steak in Miami Beach on March 21, 2022 — just two weeks after Covington defeated Masvidal at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Masvidal is now facing felony charges of aggravated battery and criminal mischief.

"When Miami sees me, they lose their mind because I am the city, bro," Masvidal told ESPN. "I am Miami-Dade, you know?"

Last time the Ultimate Fighting Championship landed in Miami, the company was still in the infancy of its commercial success. The 2003 Hughes matchup against Sherk came on the heels of UFC40, a Tito Ortiz v. Ken Shamrock fight that was viewed as a turning point for the then-financially struggling company. But UFC events still regularly garnered less than 100,000 pay-per-view purchases, a small fraction of what they rake in these days.

UFC's popularity exploded in the mid-2000s with the success of the reality TV series The Ultimate Fighter and marquee bouts between Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture. Nowadays, the fan base is entrenched across the country and big-name fights regularly sell out venues and pull in more than a million pay-per-view purchases.

For those who weren't able to snag tickets for the April 8 action, the early prelims are at 6 p.m. on UFC Fight Pass, the prelims are at 8 p.m. on ESPN and ESPN+, and the main card is at 10 p.m. on ESPN+.