Dana White Still Moving Forward With UFC 249 In April

Despite constant “curveballs” and other issues, UFC president Dana White remains focused on putting UFC 249 together in April.

The card, originally scheduled for Brooklyn on April 18, shifted to Las Vegas after first reports of the COVID-19 virus started moving events. However, that was also changed again to an unknown location for the time being.

In an interview with Mike Tyson, White stated he has “four-to-five” locations in mind for the lightweight title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson.

“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 (thanks to MMA Fighting for the quotes). “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.”

Nurmagomedov and Ferguson has been booked several times before only to fall apart at the last minute due to injury or other issues. Now, a world-wide pandemic has caused many to question if it will happen ever.

“Everybody is running and hiding,” White said. “I’m one of those guys that would rather get out there and find solutions. If you’re somebody that’s high risk, you should probably stay away and stay quarantined for a while.

“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.”