At a time when sports bodies are either cancelling or postponing events, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the UFC is yet to take a strong step.
UFC Fight Night 170 held in a week when many sports were cancelling or shifting games on the schedule, although the fight held in a nearly empty venue.
Now, with UFC 249 originally scheduled to start less than a month from now, there are still speculations that the event might be shifted, but president of the UFC, Dana White, is still very confident that the fight would go on as planned.
This is as the New York State Athletic Commission had announced that the show cannot hold on that day. White replied with a picture on Twitter that showed Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson in space suits on the moon.
White is in no position to take the two fighters to the moon as it is very impractical, but that just shows how very willing he is to see the fight go on as he has no current plans to reschedule.
However, he is fighting a very tough battle as nobody would want such an event to go on at this time. With governments and groups preaching social distancing as a means to flatten the curve of the rising figures of coronavirus cases, a fight involving many people is a very bad idea.
In the US alone, there are almost 30,000 cases, over 15,000 of them from New York alone, making it impossible for the fight to hold in the Brooklyn’s Barclays Center as planned.
White is still sure he can pull it off, asking if there was anyone willing to bet with him to see if the fight would hold.
He said “if you’re a fan, a media member, whatever you might be, do you want to bet against me? You want to bet that I can’t pull stuff off?” He said making the fight happen could stop the media and other people from doubting him.
The main problem as it stands now, even if the fight was to hold, is a venue for it. Although Khabib Nurmagomedov believes the fight could hold in Dubai.
Written by: Leon Osamor