UFC returns after seven-week sporting shut-down

Ultimate Fighting Championship chief Dana White’s willpower to pull the combined martial arts sequence out of coronavirus quarantine culminates Saturday in UFC 249. White’s controversial plans to stage a battle card in April on an Indian tribal reservation in California have been thwarted. But he acquired the inexperienced mild in Florida to carry bouts with out spectators and can televise UFC 249 from Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jacksonville, headlined by an interim light-weight title bout between Tony Ferguson and Juston Gaethje.

Both fighters made weight on Friday at a weigh-in the place media members and most UFC employees have been saved at a distance, these nearer to the fighters wore masks and the dimensions was sanitized. Bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo and former champ Dominick Cruz each made weight for his or her title bout as properly.

With the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer all on maintain — together with the US PGA Tour and LPGA — White touts the return of UFC as a step towards normalcy and a boon for sport-starved followers. And he says that’s a step US President Donald Trump was backing in a convention name with US sports activities league leaders again in April.

“The president’s take on it was we have to get live sports back first,” White informed the Los Angeles Times. “Show everybody how to do it safely. Give people who have to stay home some entertainment so they’re not bouncing off the walls. From there, we can figure out how we get people back to work and how we get kids back to schools.

“I’m going first. … hopefully after I do this, other leagues will start looking and say, ‘Yeah, we can do this.’“

White thought he would escape California state lockdown measures when he planned an event for April 18 on Indian casino land, but that plan eventually folded when Walt Disney Co, owner of UFC broadcaster ESPN, stepped in and asked him to postpone.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis opened the door when he gave “essential services” standing to staff at professional sports activities and media productions with a nationwide viewers.

And White, who has additionally introduced playing cards for May 13 and 16 in Jacksonville, insists the manufacturing gained’t put anybody in danger.

“Listen, we have families, too,” White informed CNN Sport. “I have a family; I don’t want to hurt my family. I don’t want to die.

“This isn’t just some crazy, this is a well thought-out plan. We’ve had very, very smart people, doctors and people that have been involved with the UFC for a very long time working on this thing non-stop since it started. We believe that we have this thing in a place where it can be as safe as it can possibly be.”