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Dana White announces UFC 300 headliner
UFC CEO Dana White followed through with his promise to announce the official headliner of UFC 300 this Saturday. Ahead of his appearance at the UFC 298 post-fight press conference, White announced the third championship fight featured at the tricentennial event.
“I am here in the Honda Center in Anaheim, California and I’m going to announce the main event for UFC 300 right now,” said White. “It will feature Alex Pereira defending his light heavyweight title against Jamahal Hill.”
White: UFC 300 headliner came down to timing and availability
Many possible headlining fights have been mooted for UFC 300. Much discussed possibilities included the return of Conor McGregor against Michael Chandler, middleweight champ Dricus Du Plessis against former champ Israel Adesanya, or a welterweight title fight pitting champ Leon Edwards against Khamzat Chimaev.
“This was not about money,” said White. “It was all about timing. We’ve got three killer cards in a row and in this business you have injuries and all kinds of other bulls—t that goes on behind the scenes. We’ve been talking about 300 forever. We were just trying to make the best fights that we could possibly make. We had two more fights to make and we’re trying to put on two bad ass fights.
“These two guys are it,” continued White. “I’m sure you saw the video, I walked through who they both are, what they’ve both done. Both guys are hungry. They both want it. No way that fight sucks.”
Jamahal Hill gives insight into UFC 300 addition
The former light heavyweight champ Jamahal Hill apparently came into the conversation quite recently. He had to give up his title last year after injuring his ACL playing a pickup basketball game during International Fight Week.
“I found out for sure for sure that it was locked in since I been in this, since I got to the [UFC 298] venue,” said Hill. “We talked about it and I agreed to it yesterday.”
“Everybody wants to be on UFC 300, but realistically it didn’t really come on my radar and didn’t really happen until like yesterday,” said Hill. “I’m not going to lie. Like, yesterday. When he called me, and he let me know the situation.
“Basically the situation was they needed a main event. They had some things lined up but they would have preferred it be me and Alex. It’s the first option, it’s what they really wanted. The people definitely wanted it, that’s what they’ve been asking me for months now, all week and things like that. Yeah, it made sense.”
Hill vs Pereira is a fine bout to headline a UFC PPV but some fans will no doubt be disappointed that none of the more epic matchups previously rumored came to fruition. There’s no doubt that defending LHW champ Pereira has had one of the most charmed UFC runs in history, winning not one but two division titles in only a seven-bout UFC career.
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