New UFC complex includes Ronda Rousey Restaurant, Anderson Silva Conference Room

Should your presence be required at the UFC’s sprawling new complex, set to open February 2016, a few familiar names will greet you in its halls.

You might pass by the Chuck Liddell Lounge on your way to the UFC Athlete Health and Performance Center. You could head into the Anderson Silva Conference Room for a meeting. Should you be hungry, you could hit up the Ronda Rousey Restaurant – if the promotion’s private chef hasn’t whipped up something already.

“We’re still trying to figure it out,” UFC President Dana White said today during after a groundbreaking ceremony. “All the different rooms are named after some of the great fighters.

“(Liddell) was telling me he wants the restaurant named after him.”

No word yet on which UFC fighter gets the rights to the restroom, but surely there’s a few names on the list.

The UFC today broke ground on the 180,000-square foot campus, which signals a new era for the promotion after years of expansion. Rooms at the industry-leader’s former office on Las Vegas’ Sahara Blvd grew so packed that employees were “sitting on top of each other,” White told MMAjunkie.

There will be more space for a better working environment, which White hopes will lead to more creativity when it comes to selling fights. But with 40,000 square feet – about 20 percent – of the building devoted to workout and rehabilitation facilities, the promotion aims to curtail one of its biggest adversaries: injuries.

One likely casualty of the expansion is the warehouse that hosts the promotion’s long-running sports reality show, “The Ultimate Fighter,” just a short drive from downtown Las Vegas and the Rio casino. A gym, soundstage, and editing facility wrapped into one, the building has seen hundreds of fighters come and go as the UFC has risen from fringe sport to mainstream attraction. In 2004, when members of the inaugural season threatened to strike, White sped there to nip the dissension in the bud with his famous “Do you want to be a fighter?” speech.

But with the new digs, the UFC president said it’s hard to justify keeping the space on the books.

“We lease most of the space down there,” he said. “Plus, our warehouses are down there, I have a warehouse down there, so it would be weird to leave. But it’s probably going to happen. Progress…what are you going to do?”

Where one building closes, however, another may one day replace it. A physical Hall of Fame building could pay ultimate tribute to the fighters deemed to be major contributors to octagon history. That will be located in a different building, according to UFC Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta.

But for now, “legends” and Hall of Famers will bring a touch of history to a symbol of the promotion’s future.

For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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