Tom Wright

SASKATOON – For the first time since its Canadian debut in 2008, the UFC will hold just two events in the country over the course of a calendar year. But that won’t be the case in MMA.

From 2009-2014, the octagon made three appearances in a country UFC President Dana White once labeled the “mecca” of MMA.

Calgary was possibly going to get a show in December, after MMA again failed to become legalized in New York. However, an official announcement was never made, and the organization ultimately opted to hold UFC 194, its final pay-per-view event of the year, in Las Vegas.

Since Canadian superstar and former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre took a hiatus from the sport nearly two years ago, critics have argued the sport is on decline in the Great White North.

UFC Managing Director for Operations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand Tom Wright said that’s not the case. He said the lack of a third event in Canada this year is simply a byproduct of the hectic UFC schedule and the fact that UFC 194, headlined by a championship doubleheader of Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor and Chris Weidman vs. Luke Rockhold, was a logical choice for Las Vegas.

“When you’re trying to schedule a global sport across five different continents and venues and cities and all those kind of things, making sure it works with your broadcast partners, I think our scheduler has the toughest job in sport,” Wright told MMAjunkie. “These things happen. There have been times in Canada where we haven’t expected to have an event, and then all of a sudden we have one. These things happen in a dynamic sport. You’ve got to be flexible, you’ve got to be reasonable, and you’ve got to look at what the opportunities are.

“The way the schedule was lining up, it makes all the sense in the world to have UFC 194, the unification fight between our featherweight champion Aldo against the interim champion McGregor, happen in the fight capital of the world. That makes sense.”

Rory MacDonald

The UFC currently has 26 Canadian fighters signed to its roster. Four of those – Rory MacDonald, Alexis Davis, Sarah Kaufman and Randa Markos – are listed in the organization’s official rankings.

Wright said moving the sport forward in Canada is still an ongoing process. Several years ago MMA wasn’t legalized across the entire country, but now it is. Wright realizes some fans are frustrated by the lack of live events this year, especially in substantial markets such as Calgary and Toronto, but in the grand scheme, Wright said positive steps continue to be taken.

“We’ve worked very hard to try to develop the sport beyond just live events,” Wright said. “We’ve got a groundbreaking new relationship with TSN and RDS in Quebec, with The Fight Network, which we think is really important. We’ve launched UFC Gyms here. By the end of the year, there will UFC gyms in Ontario, in Alberta and in British Columbia. In terms of EA Sports, who makes our video game, Canada is one of our largest markets.

“You can look at things in isolation, but I’ll tell you, five years ago the UFC had been in one city and in one province. Now you scroll forward. On Monday of next week, we’ll have had 19 shows. We’ll have been in eight different cities and seven different provinces. To me, that shows the commitment to taking our sport and our brand and our athletes across Canada from coast to coast. We will continue to have that commitment.”

The UFC makes it second and final Canadian stop this year tonight when UFC Fight Night 74 takes place at SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The event is expected to be a near-sellout, with more than 10,000 fans in attendance for a card headlined by featherweight contenders Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira.

Wright said he’s unable to reveal an exact date for when the octagon will return to Canada because the UFC’s 2016 schedule isn’t finalized. What he did confirm, though, is that he anticipates three events in Canada next year with at least one in a new territory.

“We are in the start of the planning process, but I suspect you’ll find that in 2016, we’ll probably go back to a couple markets where we have been before, and then we’ll have a new market just like we did this year with Saskatoon, and last year in the fall we went to Halifax,” Wright said. “We’re going to these new cities, and it’s important that we take our sport to as many new cities as possible. We recognize where we have a strong base in core markets around the country.

“We remain very committed to Canada. When we get our scheduling act together, that’s when we’re going to be able to announce when we’re going to come in 2016. And as I said earlier, we’re probably going to have three events here in Canada and another two across the region between Australia and New Zealand. I’m looking forward to it.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 74, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.