UFC 243 delivered as advertised when it came to filling the seats at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.
The event set a promotion record for attendance, drawing an announced crowd of 57,127 for a card headlined by a middleweight title unification bout between Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker. That figure surpasses the previous record, which was also set in Melbourne when 56,214 fans saw Holly Holm shock women’s bantamweight queen Ronda Rousey in the evening’s headliner at UFC 193 in November 2015.
While UFC 243 lacked the depth of the aforementioned UFC 193 lineup, the headliner between Adesanya, a Nigerian-born Kiwi, and Whittaker, who hails from Sydney, was of more interest to the locals.