When GRACIEMAG.com first broke the news the Ultimate Fighting Championship was set to touch down in the Barra da Tijuca borough of Rio de Janeiro for the first time, in 2011, UFC president Dana White sought to throw us off track.
Today, however, Riotur, the Rio de Janeiro Municipal tourism enterprise overseen by the city’s Secretary of Tourism, confirmed for this report that GRACIEMAG.com had it right yet again.
According to City Hall, the Octagon is set to arrive at the HSBC Arena in August of next year. To the Secretary of Tourism, UFC Brazil is already considered the city’s big event of that month.
The Riotur agenda was released last weekend by president of Riotur Antonio Pedro in Joaquim Ferreira dos Santos’s Gente Boa column in Globo newspaper.
It will be the second UFC to take place in Brazil. In 1998 the show was held in São Paulo, with fights like Vitor Belfort vs. Wanderlei Silva.
