Thursday, April 9, 2020

UFC 249 cancelled due to coronavirus, Dana White confirms

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MARCH 06: UFC president Dana White interacts with media during the UFC 249 press conference at T-Mobile Arena on March 06, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)
White was forced to cancel UFC 249 (Picture: Getty/Zuffa LLC)

UFC 249 has been officially cancelled, UFC president Dana White confirmed on Thursday.

The event was originally scheduled to take place in Brooklyn and had a hotly-anticipated lightweight title bout between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson on the card.

The event in Brooklyn was initially scrapped due to the coronavirus pandemic but White began promoting the event in California. The headline fight had already been cancelled with Khabib being stuck in Russia due to travel restrictions as a result of Covid-19.

Still, White was pushing ahead with the event on April 18, with Justin Gaethje accepting a short-notice fight against Ferguson to headline the bill.

Read the latest updates: Coronavirus news live

But UFC 249 has now been scrapped in its entirety, with White forced to bow down to ESPN and Disney bosses’ wishes.

‘This whole thing has been a battle since Day 1. We’ve been fighting all day and all night since this pandemic started to put on this event on April 18,’ White told ESPN.

‘Today we got a call from the highest level you can go at Disney and the highest level of ESPN. The powers that be there asked me to stand down and not do this event next Saturday.

‘We’re ready to go. When the world gets back to normal, the California event will be at Tachi Palace – I appreciate them standing with me in this thing.

‘I’m going to make things right with the people who were willing to step up and fight next weekend. I’ll take care of as many people as I possibly can. All of my employees, nobody is getting laid off at the UFC. We’ll be the first sport back.

‘Fight island is real, it’s a real thing. The infrastructure is being built right now. That’s really going to happen.’



from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8291209 https://ift.tt/3e9w1B1

No comments:

Post a Comment