Dana White On UFC 249: Every Time We Plan Something, It Falls Apart
Whether you agree with his actions or not, UFC president Dana White is doing whatever it takes to push ahead with UFC 249, which features the highly anticipated UFC lightweight title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson.
Although the UFC were forced to postpone three of their shows as a result of the coronavirus, Dana has consistently stated that he’ll do whatever it takes to keep UFC 249 going ahead on April 18th, stating that the fans need to be entertained.
Speaking to his good friend Mike Tyson on YouTube, Dana defended himself from those that have been critical of his stance on the coronavirus and accused the media of fear mongering.
“Everybody’s running and hiding. 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’s going to happen then?
“I think that the media has made this thing scary. People are f***ing 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.”
With the world on lockdown in these crazy times, Dana again reiterated the fact that he will pull off the Khabib vs Ferguson fight. A fight that has been scheduled four times in the past but never made it to the Octagon.
“I’m gonna try and pull off Tony vs Khabib on April 18th and try to get some normalcy back in this country.”
Speaking to Kevin Iole recently, Dana said that he had “two or three options in the United States and three or four options outside the country” to hold UFC 249. It now appears that the UFC boss has less options, after having more “curve balls” thrown at him.
“Every day that I work on this thing, I get another curve ball thrown at me when I wake up. 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.”
It is thought that Khabib is now back in Dagestan. Which could be another spanner in the works, as Russia has just announced a total cross-border travel ban starting on March 30th. Although you would expect that between Dana and the Russian president Vladimir Putin, that the UFC will be able to find a way to get the UFC lightweight champion out of the country.
Do you think UFC 249 will go ahead on April 18th? Or do you think Dana White will have one too many curve balls thrown at him?
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