The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has delayed their supposed Philippine arrival for 2014 as its President Dana White attributed the said failure to problems with sponsorship for the sport.
Dana White spoke to the media during after Saturday's UFC 173 event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. He also expressed the difficulty of expanding their market to Russia, despite having Russian-speaking fighters in their roster.
"Philippines should have been done already, but it's not," White told the media about the supposed UFC Philippines 2014. "Russia's a tougher place to navigate, especially now."
The UFC's Philippine arrival for 2014 has been talked about since 2008, and a Philippine-based season of The Ultimate Fighter reality show was originally planned.
Another report was released in February about how the company "is getting closer and closer" to holding an event in the country.
"Everybody's saying, we're not doing enough fights," White said during the UFC 169 media day interview in February. "There's places that are starving for it and that's what we set up this year. We're travelling all throughout in Asia. We wanna get down to the Philippines."
White also added that a problem with one of their big sponsors arose, forcing them to withdraw the UFC Philippine event for 2014, and filmed The Ultimate Fighter China instead.
The Philippines has been known to produce the world's best mixed martial arts fighters. In the UFC roster alone, a number of Filipino fighters have garnered a huge following.
Middleweight Mark "The Filipino Wrecking Machine" Muñoz who is one of the UFC's best wrestlers, will be headlining a UFC Fight Night event in Berlin, Germany this coming weekend. He will be facing former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Gegard Mousasi.
Two more homegrown Filipino fighters have been added to the UFC roster recently. The entry of bantamweights Dave "Scarecrow" Galera and Mark Eddiva of the country's renowned Team Lakay of Baguio City proves that the Philippines is indeed in the UFC's radar.
While the UFC Philippine event for 2014 may be put on hold, the UFC has continued to expand their market overseas. The most recent one being a Latin America edition of The Ultimate Fighter, which will make its debut in August.
The event will be coached by heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez and number one contender Fabricio Werdum.
