Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White is facing two great unknowns as the promotion finalizes its 2021 fight campaign and begins mapping out the first quarter of 2022.
Not only did White and Co. lose the biggest star in the history of mixed martial arts (MMA), thanks to a broken leg that sidelined Conor McGregor for more than a year, they now have to plan for another potential outbreak of coronavirus, not unlike the one that brought the world to a screeching halt back in early 2020.
But one man’s roadblock is another man’s opportunity and White won’t let the socio-economic climate dictate how he runs his business.
“I have never seen anything like it,” White told FOX News. “It’s blowing my mind. But, do you know what? Everybody that is slowing down, everybody that is afraid or whatever their reason is, you know, for not wanting to get back to work. Not wanting to you know, to run their business, not wanting to get back to normal and full capacity, I will run you all over. I will run you over. No problem.”
White recently posted a self-congratulatory video to celebrate the promotion’s success during the 2020 global pandemic. When most of the other major sports leagues were closing up shop, UFC was leading by example.
“There has never been more opportunity out there than there is right now,” White continued. “You know, I keep hearing about restaurants that can’t open all the way because they can’t get people to come into work. You know, you can’t get an Uber because nobody wants to go back and drive Uber. It’s a very weird time in this country right now. And, yeah. people need to get back to work and things need to get back to normal as soon as possible.”
One person who won’t be getting back to work anytime soon is McGregor, who will spend several weeks on crutches before embarking on a long and painful rehabilitation. If and when obscenely-wealthy “Notorious” makes his combat sports return remains to be seen.
“It’s going to take him a year to recover from this one before he can come back, so I don’t know,” White said. “We’ll see. The fight game is a tough game and the kid has cemented a massive legacy for himself and made a lot of money. We’ll see how the rest of his career plays out.”
For much more on McGregor’s leg injury click here.