On Thursday, April 9, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White announced that UFC 249 will not take place on April 18 as originally planned due to COVID-19. This announcement comes after several weeks of White insisting the event—as well as all other previously scheduled UFC events—would go on as planned despite every other major sporting event or season being postponed or canceled due to the pandemic.
Heavy pressure from officials in the state of California, where the event was set to be hosted, forced the fight to be called off. They faced demands from Disney executives, the parent company of ESPN scheduled to broadcast the event on ESPN+. Calif. Governor Gavin Newsom made a call to Disney himself to request the cancellation of the fight. The fight was originally going to take place in Brooklyn but was moved to California after New York governor Andrew Cuomo banned all mass gatherings indefinitely.
The main event of UFC 249 was originally going to be a lightweight championship event held between current lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and former interim champion Tony Ferguson. However, on April 1, Nurmagomedov announced via Instagram that he was pulling out of the event as a result of being unable to leave self-quarantine in Russia, his home country.
He told fans, “I understand everything and I’m definitely upset more than you to cancel the fight, probably like all others, I had many plans after the fight, but I can’t control it all.” He encouraged fans to try to be empathetic and “put yourself in [his] shoes”, while also passively shaming the UFC for not having already called off the fight. After Nurmagomedov dropped out, he was replaced on April 6 by former World Series of Fighting (now known as the Professional Fighters League) lightweight champion Justin Gaethje.
Once the new matchup was set, White made headlines for stating his plans to secure a private island where he wanted UFC 249 and all other UFC events for the foreseeable future to be held in an interview with TMZ. White claimed he was “laser-focused” on securing an island where he would fly in fighters from all over the world on a private plane to compete in weekly events. The location was top secret.
Although there are no concrete plans for any UFC events with official dates currently, White claims that what he’s dubbed as “fight island” is still being put together. Originally going to take place in São Paulo, Brazil, the tentative plan is for UFC 250 to be held on the island on May 9.
