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UFC bantamweight Geraldo de Freitas reveals how he learned about his fight being cancelled at UFC London due to the coronavirus pandemic.
UFC bantamweight Geraldo de Freitas was just one of the many fighters originally booked to perform at the now cancelled UFC Fight Night 171 card in London, on March 21.
Scheduled to take on undefeated Welsh prospect Jack Shore, the ‘Spartan’ figured that just like UFC Brasilia the week prior, his fight would go on behind closed doors. While Dana White was insisting that the show will go on despite the global pandemic, in the end, it still got postponed along with two other UFC events.
Several fighters dealt with a lot of uncertainty the entire week, and in an interview with Bloody Elbow, Freitas opened up about the entire stressful situation that seemingly changed with each day.
“I wasn’t that concerned about it. I was more concerned before UFC Brasilia. I was worried they might cancel the card,” Freitas told BE’s Lucas Rezende. “When I learned they were going to do it behind closed doors, I got more at ease, thinking they might hold my card behind closed doors in London, too. I was still thinking about fighting then. Things were changing a lot every day, so our way of thinking started changing, too.”
Freitas was risking training and fighting despite the on going pandemic, because like many fighters, he couldn’t really afford not to.
“At first, I only thought about fighting.” he said. “I still want to fight right now, because we need that. It’s how we make a living. If you don’t fight, you don’t get paid. We wanted to fight in any way possible.
“Then things started to get more serious. Last Friday, I got an e-mail from the UFC. We were already concerned about flights to Europe being cancelled. So this e-mail was meant to put us at ease, it claimed that the card was going to happen, that there would be doctors available at the hotel during fight week,” he shared.
“It said that there would not be any fight week events and gave us orientations on how to take safety precautions, just like governments are doing. We were supposed to let them know about any symptom we might have felt and we would be tested at any time. The e-mail made sure the card was going to happen, but things changed really quickly.”
The UK was then added to Donald Trump’s European travel ban as a response to the coronavirus pandemic. The UFC then responded by saying they’ll be moving the entire card to the U.S. instead. This led to majority of the UFC London bouts being scrapped, including Freitas’.
“Then last Sunday, my coach and manager Dede (Pederneiras) let me know that the UFC’s matchmaker got in touch with him, informing him that the card was being transferred to the U.S.,” he said. “but I didn’t have a visa to fight there, nor enough time to get one.”
As his bout got officially cancelled, Freitas admitted that he had serious concerns about traveling, competing and being exposed to the highly contagious virus.
“I was really worried, I was afraid of going, getting infected and having that affect my performance,” he explained. “If I had gotten infected while there, maybe there would not be time for it to get detected and it could have affected my performance. We are high-performance athletes, every little thing makes a difference for us. If you’re starting to come down with something before a fight, that can really hinder your performance.
“I was very worried about that, I bought a mask, I bough sanitizers, but it was to no avail.”
In the end, even the plan to move the event from London to the U.S. had been scrapped, and the UFC postponed their next three events.
Geraldo de Freitas (12-5) is currently 1-1 in the UFC. Part two of our interview with the UFC bantamweight will be up today.