Golden: Dana White's action packed UFC card a perfect sports christening for Moody Center

We’re officially a UFC town.

Austin Fight Night was epic on Saturday night, and Dana White is welcome back any time. And as long as he delivers the kind of action we witnessed, the Moody Center will have a cage ready to go.

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The UFC president arrived in Austin on Friday for Fight Night weigh-ins, took in a hot plate of Gus’ Fried Chicken and then went motorcycle shopping.

Then his fighters took a sellout crowd on a wild six-hour ride.

It was deliciously brutal.

With UFC back in town for the first time since 2018, White feels right at home. Judged on what we just witnessed, it's safe to expect more promotions here in the future.

They arrived in droves for the first live combat sports event at Moody Center and were rewarded with a scintillating evening of violence: six electrifying first-round knockouts and eight finishes overall.

If the attendance numbers are any indication for future success in Texas' swanky new arena, then Longhorns basketball coach Chris Beard should slide into Dana's DMs to learn his secret.

The 17th consecutive sellout of a UFC event was even more impressive since the announced crowd of 13,689 just became the highest grossing non-pay-per-view crowd in the promotion’s history.

Moody produced a $1.93 million live gate, the most ever for a UFC non-pay-per-view card, topping the $1.92 million from the Columbus, Ohio Fight Night in May.

Austin showed up and the fighters showed out.

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“It was a great night,” White said. “The show was insane. After the third fight, I was like, ‘It’s crazy. What’s in the water in Austin here tonight?’”

Better yet, there must be something in the water that keeps him coming back. February’s UFC 271 pay-per-view event at Houston’s Toyota Center drew nearly 18,000 fans and produced a live gate of $4.3 million. And tickets for UFC 277 in Dallas’ American Airlines Arena on July 30 are already on sale.

As for Austin, we got early Fourth of July fireworks and some Austin-based celebrity star power to boot. Actor Jared Padalecki, who moved here in 2012, and longtime UFC analyst and podcast king Joe Rogan, who moved into a Lake Austin home in January, were spotted cage side.

The night was a knockout and White, still bursting with pride at the show his fighters delivered and the reception from a raucous crowd that arrived in huge numbers for the preliminary bouts at 3 p.m. and kept the decibel level throughout the evening, pulled out his sizable checkbook and awarded the eight finishers bonuses of $50,000 each.

Josh Emmett’s split decision main event win over Calvin Kattar was named the Fight of the Night and the featherweights also received $50K each.

It was a night that was much more about heavy handed punchers than grapplers, especially Houston bantamweight Adrian Yanez, who improved to 16-3 and continued his steady rise in the rankings with a gratifying first-round destruction of Shreveport’s Tony Kelley, whom he now considers his sworn enemy.

The bad blood started during a May fight in Las Vegas when Kelley, working his girlfriend Andrea Lee’s corner, was caught on a hot mic making what sounded like a bigoted remark about Lee’s Brazilian opponent Viviane Araujo, who had poked Lee in the eye the previous round.

"They're dirty Brazilians," he basically said in more colorful language while accusing Araújo of cheating.

Over the last few weeks, Kelley, who claimed to be the victim of cancel culture, criticized Yanez for continuing to discuss his comments. He also felt the wrath of other fighters who had called him out on Twitter. Brazilian welterweight Gilbert “Durinho” Burns, a three-time world champion, actually offered Yanez a non-official bonus if he took Kelley out.

We’ll see if Gilbert makes good. Even if he doesn’t, Yanez will get free food and drinks for life whenever he’s visiting Rio.

“When I go there, I’m telling you, man, I’m gong to party hard,” Yanez told me.

The 28-year-old Yanez, fighting in his home state for the first time since 2019, made no secret of his disdain for Kelley in the days leading up to the fight and the two nearly came to blows during the weigh-in. Making matters worse was Kelley, 35, tipping the scales at 137 1/2, which is 1 1/2 pounds over the weight limit. Per UFC rules, he forfeited 20% of his purse to Yanez, who a day later finished him with a savage cocktail of 10 unanswered punches to remove any doubt of the outcome.

It came to the delight of a huge throng of Yanez fans who were fiercely in his corner after Kelley flipped them the double bird while entering the Octagon to boos. It was the equivalent of turning up a stereo’s volume from 10 to 13,689. The crowd returned the gesture by taking a page from Boston Celtics fans who had a special chant for Golden State star Draymond Green during the NBA Finals: the same verb with Kelley’s name instead of Green’s.

Kelley seemed to embrace the heel role, but it did not serve him well. He talked to Yanez for much of the first half of the round until Yanez's superior hand speed and power silenced him, at least until minutes after the stoppage when he told Yanez he could have continued.

Yanez told Kelley he would get him for what he said, he recalled to the crowd while being interviewed in the middle of the cage.

“’I'm going to show you how us Texans do it,” said Yanez, while DMX’s rap classic "Where the Hood At" played over the loudspeakers. “We go out there and slang and bang every single time. We don’t care where you’re from, if you’re in Texas and you’re fighting a Texas guy, you’re getting slept.”

Yanez, the father of a newborn son, is fighting for his family, his state and himself. He still needs a signature win to break into the rankings — he was a solid favorite to take out Kelley — which will come if he can take down a name opponent like No. 13 Sugar Sean O’Malley.

As the wins pile up, his name is getting bigger and we will see him in other marquee cards, perhaps back in the Lone Star State. White is surely exchanging texts with Moody Center senior VP Jeff Nickler and the event makers at Live Nation for the next get-together.

If it works, why not keep doing it?

“How many more can we do in Texas?” White asked. “We’re going to change this thing to the Ultimate Texas Fighting Championship. There are a couple of places in this country that have made it really easy to put on events that are fan friendly and promoter friendly to come and Texas has been one of those states. So we’ve been hitting it and we will continue to hit it.”

There’s something about hitting that keeps the people coming back for more.

We’ll be waiting, Dana.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Dana White and UFC delivered for Austin at Moody Center