Dana White Says UFC London is Happening
Dana White played more of a security guard than a moderator at the UFC 272 press conference but he did address some future news.
While keeping Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal apart. The UFC Fight Night: Volkov vs. Aspinall card that is scheduled to take place in London, March 19 might have some issues with one half of its main event. With Alexander Volkov coming from Russia or anyone traveling from the region right now, might have some trouble doing any sort of business.
With the Russia/Ukraine conflict going and Russia facing sanctions for their actions White asked if there were any updates on Volkov’s availability. White said, “Off the top of my head right now, I don’t know where we’re at with that. We’ve been working on it obviously since this whole thing started.”
When asked if there were any contingency plans already in motion, White replied; “ London’s happening. You know the co-main event of this (UFC 272) fell out this week and we got it fixed. We’re pretty good at doing that.”
White is referring to Rafael Fiziev being removed from his lightweight co-main event bout with Rafael Dos Anjos. He was quickly replaced by UFC lightweight Renato Moicano who stepped in on five-days notice. The UFC seems to have gotten pretty good at saving cards and moving forward considering all the cards that they have been able to hold during the COVID-19 pandemic that took hits due to travel restrictions and mandates.
COVID protocols across MMA have knocked off or changed a few fight cards and now, with a war going on and a sport that has a lot of fighters from Russia, this might be something that comes up a lot unless things change.
It’s a good thing White’s already bald because he would have pulled his hair out by now.
