When Turki Alalshikh announced the September 12 boxing card headlined by Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford would take place at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, he also revealed that UFC CEO Dana White would be a part of the team promoting the event. That announcement came not long after White reiterated his distaste for stadium events.

In early May, Alvarez scored a decision win over William Scull at ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The victory made Alvarez the undisputed super middleweight champion. Not long after Alvarez’s hand was raised in victory, Alalshikh announced that Alvarez will put his IBF, WBA, WBC, WBO, and The Ring titles on the line against Terence Crawford in Vegas. At the same time, Alalshikh surprised many when he added that White would help to promote the event.

The 37-year-old Crawford, 41-0 (31 KOs), last fought in August, defeating Israil Madrimov to win the WBA light middleweight title and vacant WBO interim light middleweight belt. Prior to that fight, Crawford became the undisputed welterweight champion with a ninth-round TKO win over Errol Spence Jr in 2023. The win over Madrimov was Crawford’s first fight over 147 pounds (154). He will be stepping up to 168 pounds to face Alvarez in Vegas.

Crawford was also the undisputed light welterweight champion when he knocked out Julius Indongo in 2017.

The 34-year-old Alvarez (63-2-2 with 39 KOs) has been mainly competing at super middleweight since 2020. The win over Scull moved his 168-pound record to 11-0.

“This is one of the biggest fights ever, and obviously I’m honored to promote it."

“When they say we’re promoting it, I’m doing the promotion, we’re doing the production, the event ops, PR, I mean everything to do with the fight just like a UFC fight, while at the same time promoting UFC Noche,” White told Carlos Contreras Legaspi of ESPN Deportes. “It will all be the same weekend. It’s a bad ass weekend of fights."

“Noche is gonna be a special event every year for us to celebrate Mexico and Mexican Independence Day,” the UFC CEO added. “And yeah, it’s gonna be big from here on out, forever.”

White was then asked about the arena experience vs. the stadium experience.

“Yeah, I hate it,” said White of combat sports in stadiums. "So because I hate it so much, you know I’m gonna have to try and figure out how to make it an incredible experience inside Allegiant.”

White was in attendance at WrestleMania 41, which took place at Allegiant Stadium in April. After experiencing that event, White offered up his opinion on stadium events.

"No, nothing will change my mind about a stadium show," White said during the UFC Kansas City post-fight press conference. "I mean, you guys were here tonight. Kansas City is an awesome city. The people here are great, I really like this town and the energy in that place was awesome all night. That's the energy you get – not that there wasn’t any (energy at WrestleMania). What'd they have, 63,000 people there? You're going to get some energy like they did. I am not a fan of stadiums. I like arenas."

White’s stance earlier this year echoed what he said in September 2024 when the subject of a fight card at Allegiant Stadium came up.

"I don’t want to take the experience away from people,” White said. “We’ve done stadiums before. It’s just it’s not my favorite thing. I like arenas. Yeah, I really like arenas.

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“I think that fans get a much — what I care about every Saturday, whether you stayed home and watched it on TV or you came to the venue and watched it — is that everybody walks away on a Saturday night going, ‘God, I’m glad I came to the fights,’ or ‘This was worth coming to,’” White continued. “Or, they don’t walk out going, ‘Well, that sucked. That wasn’t a good experience.’ That’s what I focus on literally every week.”

"No, that’s not what I look for,” White added. “I look for incredible experiences, unique experiences, and things that have never been done before. That’s what I’m into. I’m not like, ‘Oh, I have to do Allegiant Stadium.’ I don’t have to do Allegiant Stadium. I want to give fans a great experience every time.”

Despite his reluctance to be involved with a stadium event, White and the UFC have held five stadium events in the promotion’s history, so he has experience in staging large events.

UFC 129: Georges St. Pierre vs. Jake Shields at Rogers Centre in Toronto on April 30, 2011

UFC on FOX 14: Alexander Gustafsson Vs. Anthony Johnson at Tele2 Arena in Stockholm, Sweden on January 24, 2015

UFC 193: Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm at Etihad Stadium (now Marvel Stadium) in Melbourne, Australia on November 14, 2015

UFC 198: Fabricio Werdum vs. Stipe Miocic at Arena da Baixada in Curitiba, Brazil on May 14, 2016

UFC 243: Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia on October 6, 2019

“It’s an absolute honor," White said of his involvement in the upcoming boxing card, "Canelo and Crawford have both been great about this too, and I look forward to working with these guys from now till September. So it’s gonna be fun.”