UFC president Dana White is still doing all he can to make sure Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson takes place.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, White has remained adamant that the UFC 249 headliner — as well as the full card — will still go ahead on April 18. Earlier this week, the UFC head honcho revealed he had a location but would not reveal it to the media just yet.
And based on his recent comments, it appears he may have hit a roadblock in getting it finalized. Regardless, he still has four or five locations and insists a deal will be made soon despite the curve balls getting thrown at him.
“I’m gonna try and pull off Tony vs. Khabib on April 18 and try to get some normalcy back in this country,” White told Mike Tyson on Friday (via MMA Fighting). “Every day that I work on this thing, I get another curve ball thrown at me. Every time we plan something, it falls apart — I have to re-do it, re-do it.
“I have four or five locations right now and we’re getting this deal done. And then we’re going to figure out who we can get in, who we can’t, what we can do and we’re going to build a card around it.”
White has been repeatedly criticized by the mixed martial arts media for trying to make the event happen. He has even hit back at some of those media members.
And as far as he is concerned, he’s just trying to find solutions to the problem — a problem he believes the media has made even worse:
“Everybody’s running and hiding,” White added. “I’m one of those guys that would rather get out there and find solutions. How do we figure this out? How do we beat this thing? Listen, if you’re somebody that’s a high risk, you should probably stay away and stay quarantined for a while. What happens when flu season comes again next year? What happens then?
“I think that the media has made this thing scary. People are buying all of the toilet paper there is. If you just look at a lot of things that are going on, it’s wacky and totally driven by fear. It’s very weird.”
What do you make of White’s comments?