At last Saturday night’s UFC event in Mexico City, the action wasn’t confined to inside the Octagon.

Mixed martial arts fight cards can sometimes deliver some drama in the stands, as was shown last year by the December brawl between middleweight rivals Sean Strickland and Dricus du Plessis that served as a lead-in to their world title fight last month.

But in Mexico City late on Saturday night, one skirmish in the crowd caused quite a disturbance — and even prompted UFC lightweight fighter Manuel Torres to pause his post-fight celebration from his first round submission win over Chris Duncan to call for calm from the audience.

Speaking after the event to the media, including The Mac Life, UFC boss Dana White said that he was surprised that the brawl was allowed by security to go on for as long as it did.

“I mean, that never happens,” said White. “Literally never happens. It happened here in Mexico City. The crazy thing about that fight, when that fight broke out, it felt like it kept going forever. So I ran over there and I was watching it, nobody stopped it. I was waiting for security to come in, and they just let them go until it was over.”

He added: “That was one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. I don’t think it’s a bad look for the UFC. It happened and that was the end of that.”

Best angle of the brawl in the stands #UFCMéxico pic.twitter.com/lMBYsXynU7

— Carlos Contreras Legaspi 🦁 (@CCLegaspi) February 25, 2024

Footage of the brawl circulating on social media shows one audience member appearing to be knocked out cold courtesy of a left hook from another member of the public, and White said was probably the reason that the disturbance eventually wound down.

“I think after everybody else saw that sh*t nobody else wanted to try that again,” he said. “No security! The fight just went on until it was over. I’ve never seen any sh*t like that in my life. Crazy.”