Despite all the bumps and bruises along the way, UFC president Dana White expects a night to remember at UFC 206 on Saturday in Toronto’s Air Canada Centre.
 
“I can promise you this: Tomorrow night, that place is sold out. It’s going to be packed to the rafters and the people who show up are going to see the craziest night of fights ever,” White told TSN.ca. “It’s the one thing that we always do. It’s why our brand is so strong and we’re so consistent with delivering great fights.”
 

UFC 206 is the promotion’s first trip back to Toronto since UFC 165 in September 2013. The card features an unorthodox interim featherweight championship bout between Anthony Pettis and Max Holloway in the main event.
 
Pettis was ruled ineligible to win the interim featherweight title and will forfeit 20 per cent of his purse after missing weight by three pounds on Friday. Holloway can become the interim champion with a victory.
 
Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone takes on Matt “The Immortal” Brown in the co-main event, followed by veteran Cub Swanson taking on rising star Doo Ho Choi. The pay-per-view main card is rounded out by a middleweight matchup between Tim Kennedy and Kelvin Gastelum and a welterweight tilt between Jordan Mein and Emil Meek.
 
“Cowboy Cerrone and Matt Brown is going to be ridiculous,” White said. “If that isn’t fight of the night we’re in for one hell of a night. Doo Ho Choi, I’m pretty high on this kid. He’s fighting the No. 5 guy in the world, Cub Swanson, who is a nasty, tough veteran. If Choi treats Cub the way he’s treated everyone else, we’re looking at another superstar.”
 
Six Canadians will appear on the preliminary card, headlined by Misha Cirkunov taking on Nikita Krylov in a light heavyweight bout.
 
The card was originally headlined by a light heavyweight title fight between champion Daniel Cormier and challenger Anthony Johnson, with Pettis and Holloway coming in as the co-main event without the interim title on the line.
 
The rest of the card was filled out by a slew of Canadian talent, but drew plenty of criticism for its lack of star power.
 
A touch of misfortune turned into luck as Gastelum missed weight ahead of his UFC 205 bout with Cerrone in November. Both fighters were given different matchups and moved to the Toronto card, adding a few marquee names that were missing.
 
Bad news struck again when Cormier was forced out of the main event with a groin injury at the end of November. The UFC offered Johnson a replacement fight against Gegard Mousasi, but the challenger opted to wait for his title shot.
 
“Every time we build a card, we’re ready for a couple of fights to fall off,” White said. “When you’re dealing with human beings, people are going to get injured, people have personal problems. There are all types of situations that pop up leading up to a fight and you just have to be ready to deal with it and try to figure it out.
 
“The crazy thing about this business is you really can’t control anything.”
 
White has rolled with the punches and the UFC 206 fight card has become an event worth watching. It’s been a long time coming for the organization’s return to Toronto and there are giant shoes to fill.
 
Former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson battled for five rounds at UFC 165 in one of the greatest fights in UFC history. Jones emerged victorious to defend his title for a then light heavyweight-record sixth time.
 
So why has the UFC been gone so long after such a memorable night?
 
“That’s just how it is,” White said. “We went to Korea, we did the Philippines, we did New York, we’ve been to a lot of places we’ve never been to and there are only so many fights a year with so many in North America, etc.
 
“It was just a matter of this is when it happened. There was no specific reason like, ‘We’re not going back to Toronto for three years.’ It just wasn’t the way it played out.”
 
The UFC has held three other previous shows in Toronto — UFC 129 (2011), UFC 140 (2011) and UFC 165 (2013). Georges St-Pierre headlined UFC 129 at the Rogers Centre in April 2011 in a welterweight championship matchup against Jake Shields. The event set a UFC attendance record with 55,724 fans at the event. That number remains second among live shows after UFC 193 in Melbourne, Australia attracted 56,214 in November 2015.
 
White wants to assure fans that the hiatus from Toronto wasn’t for a lack of trying.
 
“I love this city,” he said. “Every time I come here it gets better and better. The reception has been great everywhere I’ve gone. I can’t get here enough.”