Dana White Calls 2012 A ‘Very Weird Year,’ Talks UFC 155

Dana White

White talks troubling 2012, UFC 155 main event

UFC 155 marks the final event of 2012 for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and perhaps no one is more relieved than president Dana White.

White spoke to the media as a part of the UFC 155 pre-fight press conference earlier this week, joined by heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos and former champ Cain Velasquez.

And the topic of the tumultuous 2012 not surprisingly was brought up.

"I'm very happy (the year is over)," White said. "It was a very weird year, but we hung in there and it was still a good year; a lot of milestones for us in 2012. But one of them is also most injuries ever in a year. So hopefully it's behind us and we never have a year like that ever."

The UFC president is hardly a stranger to injury-plagued events, but 2012 was a different kind of animal entirely. Throughout the year, events were shifted around and fights were canceled. The promotion was even forced to cancel an event entirely, something White never had to do before - something he never thought he'd have to do.

But the show must go on, and UFC 155 is one of the promotion's biggest events of the year, featuring a heavyweight rematch between the aforementioned Velasquez and dos Santos. The main event is a unique one as the Brazilian champion matches up against the Mexican challenger.

White recognizes how important the two heavyweights are and how great a following each has, but he is admittedly surprised at the fact that the UFC is bigger in Brazil than it is in Mexico.

"Brazil has been crazy, Brazil took off like a rocket. Brazil took off the way I thought Mexico would you know what I mean? I thought Mexico would take off the way Brazil did, but it didn't. We're still working on it, but there's no doubt, like you said earlier, this guy right here, Cain Velasquez, has a lot of… They were telling me at FOX Mundo, whenever they have Cain Velasquez on, the numbers go through the roof. So it's definitely proof that he has support of all the Mexican fans."

With 2012 coming to a close, and 2013 just around the corner, MMA fans celebrate the holiday season, and the UFC hopes the Dec. 29 event is a part of that holiday season. A clash such as dos Santos vs. Velasquez likely is the type of fight to gain the attention of the fans even with all the holiday distractions, especially since the two met on FOX back in November of 2011.

At least White thinks so.

"There's no doubt people know who these guys are more than they did before that fight," White said. "These fights that are around Christmas, you never know. There's two different things: There's a lot of distractions going on with the holidays, but people have been sitting around the house for the last couple of weeks. There's no real big competition. There's a couple of football games that day, but it should be a good pay-per-view."

Check out all our UFC 155 news