Speaking to ESPN’s “SportsCentre” today (Sunday, March 15 2020) Dana White addressed the status of upcoming events in wake of the coronavirus epidemic spreading. This comes just a day after UFC Brasilia went ahead with no crowd in attendance.
The UFC confirmed recently that they had planned to move UFC
Fight Night Ngannou vs. Rozenstruik (March 28) and UFC Fight Night Overeem vs
Harris (April 11) to their state of the art facility the UFC APEX. Shortly after
this decision, the Nevada State Athletic Commission decided to put in place a
temporary revocation of all combat sports licences until March 25th.
“As of now the fights can’t happen at the Apex here in Las
Vegas so we’re looking to find new locations but the fights will go on, they
will continue. We’re not stopping we will find a way to put on the fights.”
When asked regarding the upcoming event next weekend, UFC
London. Dana revealed the event will no longer take place in London and that
they are looking to find a new venue likely to be in the United States.
A topic that has been on the minds of fans the last few days since all this started to unfold has been the fate of UFC 249: Khabib vs. Ferguson in Brooklyn, New York (April 18th). Dana stated that they had already a couple of possible venues for the fight and assured that the fight will happen, it will go on.
In closing, Dana expressed some final words of assurance
that there is currently no plan to cancel any events.
“Unless there is a total shutdown of the country where people can’t leave their houses, these fights will happen. These guys will compete, we will find venues and we will figure this thing out. The only thing that is going to stop us is a complete government shutdown where people are confined to their homes.”