Las Vegas is the Fight Capital of the World. That title is undisputed.
Half a century ago, casino operators figured out that championship boxing would draw high rollers to ringside. And before and after the fights, to the gambling halls. Ever since, many of the sport’s biggest matches have played out under the neon glow of the Nevada desert.
And once mixed martial arts came along in the 1990s, its leading promotion, the UFC, built its headquarters in Vegas and has gone on to stage the majority of its most notable fights there.
This Saturday brings the latest major MMA event to Las Vegas, as UFC 290 at T-Mobile Arena is headlined by a pair of championship bouts: Alexander Volkanovski defending the men’s featherweight title against Yair Rodriguez in the main event, and Brandon Moreno putting the men’s flyweight title on the line against Alexandre Pantoja in the co-main event.
UFC 290 (ESPN+ pay-per-view starting at 10 p.m. ET) will serve as a fitting climax to the promotion’s annual International Fight Week, as Volkanovski is an Australian who trains primarily in New Zealand, Rodriguez and Moreno are from different regions of Mexico and Pantoja is Brazilian. The event also features fighters from South Africa, Argentina, Poland, Japan and the United States.
Both MMA and boxing are international sports, of course, and the stages on which the athletes perform are worldwide. Beyond Las Vegas, what are the biggest fight cities? Our ESPN combat sports team identified 10 that have led the way over the years in both boxing and MMA. And for each of them, we present the city’s greatest boxing match and greatest MMA fight.
Source: www.espn.in
