By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
UFC President Dana White wants to clear something up — UFC 249 will happen in 11 days but it will be staged at a domestic U.S. site, not the mystery island that has been receiving a lot of headlines lately.
In a text to LVSportsBiz.com Tuesday, White said, “I have a location for fights in the US for two months and as of April 18 I will start cranking them out. For our international schedule I’m a couple days away from locking up a private island and will be doing fights there.”
But White stressed to LVSportsBiz.com that the island will be strictly for international fight events.
And UFC 249 is a go for April 18 — a week from Saturday — at a location in the United States. White did not name the 249 location. But the New York Times reported the event will be staged on tribal land in California. It will reportedly be held at Tachi Palace Casino Resort near Fresno and it will not be under jurisdiction of the California State Athletic Commission. UFC 249 was originally slated for Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Now the next several UFC events will be held at this tribal site, which has hosted MMA fight shows in the past.
UFC 249’s featured fight will be Tony Ferguson vs. Justin Gaethje, who is coming off the bench to fight the colorful Ferguson because undefeated lightweight champ Khabib Nurmagomedov can’t leave his homeland of Russia amid the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic to take on Ferguson as originally planned.
Gaethje and Ferguson will fight for the interim lightweight championship with no fans in attendance. Las Vegas-based UFC plans to be selling PPV for UFC 249.
The trade group representing ringside doctors didn’t think holding FC 249 was a good idea. The Association of Ringside Physicians said in a statement released Monday that “It is our recommendation that all combat sporting events be postponed until further notice. This includes any and all events, regardless of the number of people involved. Any combat sport taking place during this global pandemic places the athletes, officials, and anyone else involved in the event under unnecessary risk of infection and transmission of Covid-19. In addition, combat sports athletes often require medical attention after a bout, and we do not wish to see any additional strain on an already overwhelmed medical system.”
But that will not stop White, who said many times to staff and the public that he’s in the fight business and the show must go on.
It’s a show that is the only game in town as the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball have shut down amid a coronavirus that has claimed the lives of more than 11,000 Americans. There are nearly 390,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as of Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins coronavirus resource center. Nevada has 2,097 coronavirus cases and 71 deaths.
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