To put things in a clearer perspective, at the time this article was written, the UFC had staged a total of 265 events; 202 of those were in the United States; 82 of those U.S. events were held in Las Vegas. And to break the numbers down even further, world-class Las Vegas sporting venues like the MGM Grand Garden Arena (27), Mandalay Bay Events Center (27), Hard Rock Hotel and Casino (8), and Palms Casino Resort (15) have hosted most of the Las Vegas events in UFC history.
Of course, the link between these two exciting sports goes a lot deeper. Several MMA fighters and personalities, both active and retired, have taken to poker for many different purposes. Some do it as a highly effective way to raise funds for charitable organizations and worthy advocacies, while others play poker as a competitive outlet and also to earn significant amounts of money away from the cage. Former UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre is one of the most high-profile MMA fighters in the sport’s history, although his success in the cage hasn’t exactly translated to the poker tables, as he was eliminated early on at the 2012 and 2013 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Events.
Another UFC welterweight, Mike Swick, has found more lucrative success at the WSOP; he notably finished in 10th place out of 2,521 competitors in the 2010 WSOP Event #42: a three-day no-limit Hold’em tournament with a $3.4 million prize pool. Back in the 2007 WSOP Event #25 ($2,000 buy-in no-limit Hold’em), Swick finished 151st out of 1,618 competitors and earned $3,828. The revered “Veteran Voice of the Octagon” Bruce Buffer – half-brother to iconic boxing ring announcer Michael Buffer – is a highly accomplished professional poker player in his own right. Buffer has finished on the money numerous times at WSOP events, the L.A. Poker Classic, and the 2012 partypoker World Poker Tour (WPT) Montreal event, just to name a few.
UFC Hall of Famer and MMA legend Randy Couture hosts an annual charity Poker Ride to benefit the Xtreme Couture G.I. Foundation. (A poker ride is a variation of a poker run, an organized event where participants must visit various checkpoints to draw a playing card; the individual or group who has the best poker hand at the end of the event will be crowned the winner.) The Xtreme Couture G.I. Foundation has been raising money and awareness for wounded soldiers and their families since its inception in 2009 through annual poker tournaments and charity poker rides in Las Vegas.
