Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
UFC president Dana White isn’t exactly calming the fears of fight fans when discussing the coronavirus pandemic.
UFC president Dana White insists the show will go on, but isn’t offering much of an explanation about how the promotion is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. He has been adamant that UFC 249 still take place, despite the current CDC guidelines limiting public gatherings.
And as for UFC fighters and staff getting tested for COVID-19? In a wide-ranging interview with Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports today, White wasn’t going to give anything away.
“Health and safety isn’t something that just popped up on our radar with the coronavirus, it’s something we deal with every week, for the last 20 years,” White said. “We will make sure that…we will take care of everybody just like we always do. I’m not giving the public and the media all kinds of information on what we do.”
He then went on to document how he has done what he was told to do in terms of the public gatherings guidelines, and personally quarantining himself and his family since last Sunday. Iole pushed him on the testing issue though, again asking if there would be testing and telling White that the public would actually feel better knowing that it was going to happen.
Again, White resisted.
“The less the media knows, the better. … Let me just put it to you this way. A lot of this hysteria, and all this stuff that’s gone on has been driven by the media. And the less the media knows, the better off it is.
“You’ve known me for a very long time, and all of my employees that work for me, you know. When my fighters are with me and my people are with me, they’re getting the best medical attention they could possibly get. If they were alone, or they were at home, or they worked for someone else, everybody who’s with me is going to get the best medical attention possible. The less the media and the public know…you guys…when I say you guys, take that whatever. You don’t need to know. It’s none of your business.”
UFC 249 is scheduled to take place on April 18th in a location that has yet to be decided.