Hawaii Tourism Authority will meet UFC officials in Las Vegas to discuss Aloha Stadium event

The UFC has held events all over the world, but one locale they’ve never managed to stage an event is Hawaii. That may change in 2018 as the Hawaii Tourism Authority has announced they plan on travelling to Las Vegas to meet with UFC president Dana White about an event at the 50,000 person Aloha Stadium.

Here’s what HTA president George Szigeti told Hawaii news outlet KHON2:

“You heard the latest comments by President Dana White so at least that’s opened up the area for us to go back and have these serious discussions. So obviously we’re a ways off still but we’re in discussion stage and we’re now planning a future trip to go out and meet with them. We’ll make that trip back to Las Vegas to get serious about some discussions.”

“We don’t have a target yet. We wouldn’t have it until we fly back and meet with them and again we’re going to work with the Stadium Authority and ourselves going back there to do this.”

Dana White has previously dismissed doing an outdoor event in Hawaii because “it rains every ten minutes there,” but more recently he softened his stance, saying the UFC was “working on it and we really want to do it, and obviously with a Hawaiian champion now too, it makes a lot of sense.”

One big piece that will have to fall in place is that Hawaiian champ Max Holloway successfully defending his belt at UFC 222 in March against the always tough Frankie Edgar. But if Holloway wins, we could see the UFC breaking ground in a new market for one special event at least.