Over the past few years, the UFC has taken plenty of guff about holding events in the UFC Apex. Fans long for more ticket availability to live UFC events, and the fighters regularly take about the way they feed off of a live crowd. While he does like the roar of a big crowd, don’t expect to hear Kurt Holobaugh complain about the Apex. Not only does he have positive memories of a place he’s fought at many times before, but he also loves other aspects of it.
“You know, I don’t hate it at all, to be honest with you,” Holobaugh explained. “The cool thing about the Apex for me is they give the tickets for the family now, and I can have all of my kids and family set in front row, so I mean, that’s a good thing for me.”
That’s closeness is something that he’s missed in some of his other fights. However, it’s more than just getting to see their smiling faces in the front row, some of them also provide help in his fights.
“In Boston, my kids were two levels up, watching me win the Ultimate Fighter at a long distance. Here, they’re basically cornering me,” he said. “You watch my last fight with Kaynan Kruschewsky, and you hear my four-year-old at the time, hollering instructions. So to me, I think that’s really cool.”
While you won’t catch him complaining about the location of his fights, Holobaugh does have his sights on a rumored uncoming card. With Dustin Poirier’s retirement fight being planned for ‘The Big Easy’, Holobaugh has made his intentions known for that one.
“I’ve already kind of had some conversations with the UFC and my management, and nothing is locked down and official yet, but we did talk to the UFC,” Holobaugh shared. “We did say, ‘hey, when that when this happens, we’re on the card, like we have to’. I’m literally an hour away from New Orleans. So that to me, that’s just going to be a really fun time. I feel like that’s a mission accomplished.”
In the meantime, he’ll look to accomplish his mission in the Apex this weekend. He’ll fight Alexander Hernandez as part of the main card of UFC Vegas 104. The main card will start at 7pm EST on ESPN+.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview at 2:20.
