Noche UFC going head-to-head with Canelo again — this time in Mexico

Forget The Sphere. Forget Las Vegas. Forget U.S.A. This year’s Noche UFC finally headed to Mexico.

During Saturday’s UFC on ESPN: Moreno vs. Erceg event at Arena CDMX in Mexico City, the UFC announced that they would be making their debut in Guadalajara for a third Mexican Independence Day spectacular on September 13th.

The event will be held at the new Arena Guadalajara, which can hold up to 22,000 fans. The only question: can UFC fill it when going head-to-head with the city’s hometown hero Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who is expected to fight the same weekend?

Multiple reports have Canelo Alvarez fighting Terence “Bud” Crawford in September, and it would be crazy to have him compete then and miss Mexican Independence Day. Some of Canelo’s biggest career fights have been on that date, including his bout against Floyd Mayweather and all three fights in his trilogy with Gennady Golovkin.

In 2024, Alvarez fought a game but outmatched Edgar Berlanga in an event that was direct competition with the UFC’s second Noche UFC event in Las Vegas. That UFC card at The Sphere — the most expensive event the UFC has ever produced — did extremely well, but it was by no means a sure bet with Canelo fighting down the street.

Some tickets for Noche UFC 2 went from an eye-watering $3000 down to $500. There’s a part of that which has to do with the current way UFC parent company TKO sells tickets. Every event is priced as high as possible at first and then brought down until the market can bear it. But the market could only bear so much with Canelo in Vegas as well.

In the end, UFC announced UFC 306 aka Riyadh Season Noche UFC aka The Sphere event was the highest grossing UFC gate ever at $22 million. To do that, UFC sank over $15 million into production and put their biggest active star, Sean O’Malley, into the main event. Canelo vs. Berlanga drew a $17 million gate and 650,000 pay-per-views off Canelo just showing up.

Now the UFC will be trying to sell out a 22,000 seat arena in Guadalajara where Canelo was born on the same date Canelo will fight Crawford. Without the glitz and glamor of The Sphere to help them find an audience, can UFC pull this off?

Even in a time when the promotion seems to sell out everywhere it goes with the flimsiest of cards, we have our doubts — but won’t be surprised if they succeed yet again.