There is less than three weeks to UFC 249, which was originally set for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York until the coronavirus caused the event to be moved from that location.
While no location has been made official at this time, UFC President Dana White says there are four to five locations that UFC 249 could happen at.
?I?m gonna try and pull off Tony vs. Khabib on April 18 and try to get some normalcy back in this country,? White said in an interview with Mike Tyson (via Mike Heck of MMA Fighting). ?Every day that I work on this thing, I get another curve ball thrown at me. 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.?
Florida is the leading location according to betting odds, but no location has been made official yet.
White also blames the media for all the hysteria surrounding the coronavirus itself.
?Everybody?s running and hiding,? White said. ?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 happens then? I think that the media has made this thing scary. People are 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. It?s very weird.?
UFC 249 takes place on Saturday, April 18 from a location to be announced with Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.