Finally, the whirlwind of speculation surrounding the status of the UFC’s latest main card has come to an end, but this will likely be the outcome that many fight fans were dreading.
UFC 249 was already proving problematic to organise for UFC president Dana White after the proposed main event between arguably the two greatest lightweights of all time, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson was cancelled after Nurmagomedov returned home to Russia amidst the current circumstances surrounding COVID-19.
This is now the fifth separate time this matchup has been booked and then cancelled. Number four ranked lightweight contender Justin Gaethje was then booked to replace Khabib in the main event.
If that wasn’t already enough for Dana to navigate, the UFC president was then tasked with coming up with a venue that would allow the card to go ahead after multiple US states issued lockdown orders and put complete bans on mass gatherings of over 50 people. White’s response? Fight Island.
After Brooklyn’s Barclays Center pulled out of hosting the event, Dana White announced plans to secure a private island to host the event.
The seemingly cursed card would suffer another blow when former women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas pulled out of her scheduled grudge rematch with fellow contender Jessica Andrade, in what looked to potentially be a title eliminator.
Brian Butler, the manager of ‘Thug Rose’ revealed that the former champion pulled out after unfortunately losing two family members to COVID-19.
Hours later, Dana White announced the cancellation of UFC 249 and the indefinite postponement of all scheduled UFC events in an interview with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto.
Credit has to be given to Dana White and the UFC as a whole for their commitment to trying to deliver this event for the fans. Many previously cancelled bouts from UFC Fight Night events were rescheduled for UFC 249, such as the proposed heavyweight clash between Francis Ngannou and undefeated Jairzinho Rozenstriuk, which was originally scheduled to close the UFC on ESPN 8 show for March 28th before being moved to UFC 249.
This fluidity with rebooking cancelled fights made the original UFC 249 card one of the most star-studded that the promotion has put together in quite some time, but it seems that the problem of fighters pulling out of the event was not the reason for its eventual cancellation.
In the same interview with Okamoto, White confirmed rumours that he had been asked to ‘stand down’ from hosting the event from executives ‘at the highest level’ at ESPN, with whom the UFC have an exclusive broadcasting deal, and ESPN’s parent company Disney.
White also promised to ‘make things right’ with the fighters who were willing to fight on the ill-fated event and vowed that the UFC will be ‘the first sport back’.
The humble UFC president then showed his appreciation to the support shown by fans and his staff while attempting to book the event, which White described as a fight ‘from day one’. Dana still insisted that the event would have gone ahead on April 18th, but he cancelled at the behest of ESPN who White described as being ‘simply amazing’ since partnering with the UFC in 2019.
Dana concluding by speaking briefly about the planned ‘Fight Island’, to get around US state stay-at-home orders, confirming that the plans to introduce the private island as a temporary hub for UFC events is still in effect. White stated that ‘the infrastructure is being built right now, and that’s really going to happen’.
The Inbound Observer 