Dana White says fights postponed due to COVID-19 will be rescheduled
UFC President Dana White has provided some clarity to the upcoming future of fights that had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. After moving forward with their UFC Brasilia event on March 14, Dana White had to pull the plug on the next three upcoming events which were scheduled to take place in London, Columbus, and Portland.
Making an appearance on Instagram Live with Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports, White was asked about what would happen to the fights that were postponed, and he said they all would be rescheduled as they were booked.
“All these fights are being rescheduled. Once we get the Khabib fight on, we’re rolling, man. We’re back in business and we’re rolling. And like I told you earlier, everybody that’s going to fight because they want to, not because they have to.” (h/t MMA Junkie)
After postponing the three events, White made it clear that he was going to do everything in his power to make sure UFC 249, which is scheduled for April 18, to take place. After the NYSAC shut down the possibility of the event taking place at Barclays Center due to the current restrictions in place for large-crowd gatherings, White said he’d find a new location for the event to take place.
During his conversation with Iole on Monday night, White revealed that he’s “99.9% set” on a new location for UFC 249, but he wasn’t ready to reveal any details as of yet.
With White telling Iole that the postponed fights would be rescheduled, the UFC will have to work to either reschedule these events or make the fights happen on other cards. UFC on ESPN+ 29 was scheduled to take place in London on March 21 headlined by Tyron Woodley vs Leon Edwards, UFC on ESPN 8 was scheduled for March 28 and headlined by Francis Ngannou vs Jairzinho Rozenstruik, and UFC on ESPN+ 30 was set for April 11 to be headlined by Walt Harris vs Alistair Overeem.
As the UFC prepares to rework the schedule for all these fights to take place, it seems that Dana White wants to rebook the entire fight cards and not just the headliner main events.
