Dana White has confirmed that the UFC is exploring its opportunities in Spain following Ilia Topuria’s third-round finish of Max Holloway at last weekend’s UFC 308 fight card in Abu Dhabi.

Featherweight champion Topuria, who holds Spanish and Georgian nationalities, has previously pledged to be at the forefront of what would be the UFC’s first-ever event in Spain — a move which has received renewed calls following Topuria’s first successful title defence against Holloway last weekend.

And with the UFC having in recent years aggressively targeted the French market following the legalisation of mixed martial arts in that region, White says that Spain can expect to receive its maiden UFC fight card sometime next year.

“I want to go to Spain as bad as Spain wants us to come, so we’re working on it,” White told The Mac Life and other reporters last weekend in Abu Dhabi following Topuria’s victory. “We’ll get it done there.”

He added: “There’s never been a time where we said we’re going to do something and we don’t do it. We figure it out, and we’ll get it done. It’s important for me to go to Spain in ’25, so we’ll figure it out.”

Topuria’s recent success has seen his profile rise considerably throughout Spain — to the point that the former Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos joined Topuria in the cage following his win last weekend. Topuria was also greeted and celebrated by a capacity crowd inside the Bernabeu soon after he won the UFC’s 145-pound strap with a knockout win over former champion Alexander Volkanovski in February.

“When we have somebody from Spain, we want to get into Spain,” White explained further. “Georgia, yes — the answer is yes. We haven’t looked into that yet or what it would take to pull off an event near there. We’re still trying to figure out Spain with the arena situation. But when you look at the performance that Topuria had tonight, we need to get to Spain and figure it out.”