Saturday night saw a huge night of combat sports action as Noche UFC delivered an action-packed card of fights in Glendale, Arizona before the attention turned to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, as Zuffa Boxing hosted a massive fight card that saw Ryan Garcia and Jai Opetaia both claimed stoppage victories in their respective world title fights.
After a busy night for UFC President and CEO Dana White, there was plenty to talk about when he sat down for his post-fight press conference backstage at T-Mobile Arena.
WATCH: Post-Fight Press Conference | Garcia vs Benn
Here are the highlights from his conversations with the media following Garcia vs Benn.
After previously expressing his desire to tighten up a few aspects of previous Zuffa Boxing broadcasts, White said he was happy with what he saw of the show this time around and said the entire week went to plan with no major issues.
REWIND: Results + Scorecards | Garcia vs Benn
“I have heard nothing bad about the broadcast tonight, and we were able to time everything out so that UFC led right into the boxing,” he said. “And yeah, this week went so smooth, it's crazy. Leading up to before the fight started, I was like, ‘This is not good. This week's way too smooth!’ But thank God, it all worked out. Here we are. A great night.”
The night’s main event saw Ryan Garcia produce a virtuoso performance as he stopped Conor Benn in emphatic fashion in just two rounds to retain his welterweight world championship.
WATCH: Ryan Garcia TKOs Conor Benn | Garcia vs Benn
“He's one of the best in the world,” said White. “He did everything he said he was going to do. He's got knockout power, he's a good-looking kid, he speaks well, and he ducks nobody. This kid wants to fight everybody, and that's what any fight fan likes. Whether you follow UFC, boxing, kickboxing, I don't care what you follow, that's what people like.”
After Benn’s second-round defeat to Garcia, White was asked what might be next for “The Destroyer,” and he said he’d give the Englishman time to rest up and decide when he wants to return before they make any concrete plans for him.
“The kid goes home, enjoys some time with his family, relax, enjoy the success that he's had this year, and when he's ready to fight again, he calls us, and we'll put something together” White said. “We'll figure him out. He will fight again, and it's just one of those nights. Ryan Garcia is that good. That's how good Ryan Garcia really is, and he proved it here tonight in spectacular fashion, which we've been saying leading up to tonight. If he did it, could he be the face of boxing?”
The co-main event saw cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia become the first fighter to stop fellow world champion Noel Mikaelian as he added another world title to his growing collection.
🇦🇺 @JAIOPETAIA1 COMES THROUGH IN R9 ‼️
— Zuffa_Boxing (@Zuffa_Boxing) September 13, 2026
TUNE IN NOW: https://t.co/1fucBO82vE | #GarciaBenn pic.twitter.com/uZCa3Kimd8
After the fight, Opetaia faced off respectfully with David Benavidez, with the two world champions verbally agreeing to face each other further down the line. White admitted it’s a fight he’d love to make in the future.
“Yeah, great fight,” he said. “[Opetaia] got rocked in the fight, came back and looked great. And then obviously Benavidez being here… I've made no secret about the fact that I love Benavidez, and obviously that's a great fight to make. So we'll see how this whole thing plays out.”
White later elaborated on a possible Opetaia vs Benavidez matchup, as he explained, “I think that we've gotten into a better place with the sanctioning organizations. I think we have! We'll see how that all plays out over the next several months.
“But obviously, Benavidez is somebody that we're very interested in. Jai is interested. Benavidez is interested. So that's most of the battle, right there. And it gets to a point where, when you have a fight between a guy like Jai Opetaia and Benavidez, the belts… I mean, we all know these are the two baddest dudes in the world in that weight class, belts, no belts, or whatever.”
IS THIS FINALLY GOING TO HAPPEN ⁉️
— Zuffa_Boxing (@Zuffa_Boxing) September 13, 2026
See y'all next Cinco de Mayo 👀#GarciaBenn pic.twitter.com/rzWlLyVCzN
White recounted a story about Benavidez, with a remarkable full-circle story starting to play out that could culminate in “The Mexican Monster” competing in a world title fight promoted by the man he once received encouragement from as a youngster.
“It’s incredible. And for those of you that don't know the story, I was walking into Red Rock one night, and he was walking out, and we said hi to each other,” White explained. “He goes, ‘Do you remember me?’ I go, ‘What do you mean? Do I remember?’ He goes, ‘You know who I am, but do you remember me?’ I said ‘I don’t understand,’ and he said, ‘When I was little, I was a little fat kid in the gym, and I walked up to you, and I told you that I'm gonna be a world champion someday, and you sat down and talked to me for like 15 minutes, and it meant a lot.’ … I was like, ‘Holy s***, that's awesome! No, I don't remember that!’”
White has always talked about trying to make the fights the fans want, but when asked about dealing with other sanctioning bodies, he explained that he also wants to make the fights the fighters themselves want.
“All this stuff is a work in progress,” White explained. “Everybody keeps saying to me, ‘I thought you weren't working with the organizations, and I'm not going to be told what to do by anybody… I'm not going to be told how to run my business by anybody. But you know, a lot of these kids grew up at a level where they could fight for some of these belts, and if these guys are willing to work with us, we'll figure out how to make it happen. We want to do what’s right by the fighters, so we'll see how it all plays out.”
White was asked about the Noche UFC show in Glendale, which he’d been at earlier in the night before jetting back to Vegas for the night’s world title fights at T-Mobile Arena.
NOCHE UFC REWIND: Prelim Results | Main Card Results | Official Scorecards | Bonus Coverage
The boss highlighted Alexa Grasso’s victory over Manon Fiorot and Tommy McMillen’s thrilling battle with Marwan Rahiki as the standout moments of the night.
“Badass fight,” White enthused. “In that arena, the Grasso fight and the Tommy ‘Gun’ fight. It was insane in that place. It was incredible. The Arizona event was amazing.”
Following the news that Valentina Shevchenko had vacated the title while she heals up a long-term injury, White was asked about the situation with UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall, and whether the promotion would potentially look at the option of stripping him of the title until he was ready to return.
“Yeah, we'll definitely be talking about that,” he said. “Valentina doesn’t want to tie up the division, and I'm assuming Tom feels the same way. I don't know personally where he is, health-wise, with everything, but yeah, we should clear that up soon.”
White also spoke about the different approach adopted by Zuffa Boxing to the overall industry of boxing, as he highlighted the key differences in focus between his organization and the traditional boxing promoters that have previously dominated the boxing space.
“We’ve been doing this nine months. How many fights have we done? Eleven fights in nine months? That's pretty consistent,” he said. “The bigger problem that boxing has had – it's not about putting on big events and s*** like that. It's about not killing the golden geese that help support the sport, whether it be the networks, the sponsors, the casinos that do it… Boxing comes in like a going out of business sale, and grabs as much money as they can from everybody, and doesn't give a s*** if anybody else makes money off the event, and that's just not how we operate. We want everybody to win: the network, the sponsors, the fighters, the venues. That's the difference between us and everybody else in boxing.”
White later added, “Being eight or nine months into this thing, and being here tonight and doing an event like this – every day that we go into the office, it just feels like one day at Zuffa Boxing is like a month. With how much s*** we get done, it's actually pretty fascinating. Like I keep saying, we're a couple years ahead of where I thought we would be. So imagine where we'll be in a couple of years.”
