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SALT LAKE CITY — Long before Bobby Green was a 30-time winning mixed martial artist and UFC mainstay, before he was claiming his nickname "King," and even well before he had earned his first UFC contract, the 36-year-old California native felt lost in the desert.
His dad had just been sent to prison, leaving him without a fight coach. Green remembers the time around when he signed with Strikeforce in 2011, when he drove through the rural Utah desert and found a home with local MMA legend Jeremy Horn's Elite Performance MMA, who still operates in Sandy.
For Green, Strikeforce was his "coming out party" — and Utah was the bullhorn to announce his burgeoning MMA career, leading to his first UFC fight in 2013 and his latest win over Tony Ferguson at UFC 291 at the Delta Center.
"I love this place," said Green, who revealed he was changing his name to King after UFC Vegas 71, in recalling his journey back to Utah. "I drove out here and met this little Mormon chick, and really started to enjoy myself. It wasn't so bad out here. I kind of fell in love with her, started training here, and it became my home away from home. I come here to get sushi with these guys; Jeremy taught me so many different things. I got a chance to work with Matt Hughes. I remember being in a movie theater with me, Matt, Jeremy — and I'm sitting in the back going, am I ever going to ever be like these guys?
"It was my coming out moment, realizing I was here to stay. Utah's been so precious to me; they've done so much. I came out here for a show, just to be in the crowd, and people were calling me. I knew if I could just be in a (fight) in Utah, that would be amazing. And by the grace of God, here I am."
For Green, UFC 291 in Salt Lake City represented a homecoming. For other fighters, it represented a hungry fan base and another home run by the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
For the UFC, which will soon merge with fellow Endeavor company WWE to form a new, publicly listed entertainment company valued at $21 billion, Utah represented a big win, too.
The organization announced after Justin Gaethje's knockout win over Dustin Poirier late Saturday night that UFC 291 drew a venue-record live gate of $6.56 million — up from the $4.29 million earned from UFC 278 at then-Vivint Arena a year ago in UFC's first Pay-Per-View card in the Beehive State.
The sellout crowd of 18,467 fans in attendance also broke the 17,500 sellout last summer, attracting record crowds for a fight the same weekend Las Vegas was hosting one of the biggest fights in boxing's modern era that unified the welterweight division.
With success like that, UFC's unofficial announcement is clear: The organization has found a home on the Wasatch Front.
"We're already talking about next year," Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith said.
The fighters loved Utah, too — win or lose.
"I love this city. It's so clean and beautiful," said Gaethje, an Arizona native who trains out of Denver and had no problem with Salt Lake's so-called "altitude dilemma." "The people are so nice, and I love to play golf here."
At different points of Gaethje's second-round knockout of Poirier, the 18,000-plus crowd alternated between chants of "Ju-stin!" and "Du-stin!" for he and his opponent.
Despite the similarities in first names, Poirier noticed.
"And I appreciate it," said Poirier, who spent the week doing cardio in the mountains above Salt Lake City. "A lot of these hardcore fans have seen me grow up in this organization and in this sport. This was supposed to be my 30th win, my 47th mixed martial arts fight — 29 or 30 in UFC. They've seen me grow into the fighter I am. I appreciate them so much."
In Utah, it's hard to argue with results, and the results of back-to-back UFC Pay-Per-View cards in Salt Lake City speak volumes. Consecutive upsets in the main event, both capped by a vicious head-kick by Leon "Rocky" Edwards and Gaethje, respectively. Consecutive sellouts. Consecutive multi-million dollar gates, with millions more in estimated economic impact.
The popularity of MMA has been felt in Utah in numbers that are impossible to ignore.
"I think you've got the fastest growing state in the country, the youngest state in the country, and it's been that way for years," said Smith, whose Smith Entertainment Group performed the heavy lifting in bringing UFC to Salt Lake City in the first place. "It's what brings me to want to go do what we're doing in sports, our partnership in the UFC. I think we're all in on trying to improve.
"From the last two years, we're not just going through the motions. We're working to have an amazing event here, and be something that's hopefully a staple of the summer."
Utah is also growing into more of an event destination, and a larger player in the world of sports. Smith pointed to the recent NBA All-Star Game that drew massive crowds to the arena, and a passionate sports fan base enthusiastically embracing potential expansion in both Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League, as well as the thriving Real Salt Lake fan base located in the south end of the valley.
To borrow a phrase from ESPN's Brian Windhorst, what's going on in Utah?
"If you look at the Wasatch Front, it's one big community, and I think people are starting to realize it," Smith said. "We just had one of the most successful All-Star games we've ever had, one that was digital-first, in a market with 250,000 college kids within 60 miles. You look at the youth, lowest unemployment, No. 1 economy, top-four tech boom.
"You have seven million people come into this area for tourism, mostly to ski, and I think people are also going to say, 'Wow, there's something about the mountains and the wellness of Utah.' Delta just put $3 billion into the airport. We come here, we can live, we can spread out, but in a world where wellness is a premium, people are going, this is where I want to be."
Smith's group is still "in conversations" with the NHL over potential expansion, he reiterated, and a group led by the Miller family is still trying to lure an MLB franchise to Utah. Add the Jazz, Real Salt Lake, and Utah Royals FC, as well as the state's prime college fan bases, and Salt Lake is looking like more than the city that hosted the Winter Olympics two decades ago, only bigger.
UFC's success is another step in that direction.
"Just because you have friends at Endeavor doesn't mean you're going to get a UFC fight," said Smith, whose company Qualtrics was just acquired by Silver Lake, a backer of UFC parent company Endeavor. "You've got to be able to do what this place just did."
For as much success as the UFC has found in Utah, Smith hopes it's just the beginning. There's still a lot more potential to uncork in his home state.
"I think the only reason why people don't see it is because no one's ever spoken for Utah before," he said. "When people speak against Utah, no one ever says anything from Utah's standpoint.
"The tech world knows very well about Utah, but I think now what you're seeing is someone say, we have a voice, come check it out. And you're seeing moments where people are able to experience it, and it's different."
With growth comes new visitors, and new visitors lead to new residents and new growth, too.
Even in the UFC world, where moments after Uroš Medić's third-round knockout win over Matthew Semelsberger, the 6-foot-1 lightweight from Serbia who fights out of Huntington Beach, California, quipped that he's interested in making Utah more of a habit.
Maybe there's another Salt Lake fight in his future. Or maybe there's something more.
"I could see myself — I don't know about living in the city — but I would like to live here in the state of Utah," Medić said. "I spent some time at Snowbird with my friend who I met here, and he showed me around. We visited resorts, and it was so beautiful.
"It reminds me a lot of Alaska, and I spent six years in Alaska. It's super nice, and I could see myself spending more time here — especially in the winter time."
