UFC 249 and all upcoming UFC events postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19

10 April 2020

UFC has decided to postpone all the upcoming events including UFC 249 due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

The announcement was made by Dana White last day during his interview with ESPN where he noted that he got instructions from the top officials in ESPN and Disney to postpone the events. UFC 249 was scheduled to take place on April 18 and UFC had also revealed the card for the same as well.

“Today we got a call from the highest level you can go at Disney and the highest level of ESPN. One thing that I’ve said since we’ve started our relationship and partnership with ESPN is that it’s been an incredible one. It’s been an amazing partnership. ESPN has been very, very good to us, and the powers that be there asked me to stand down and not do this event next Saturday,” Dana White noted. [via MMA fighting].

White also promised that MMA will be the first sport back after the pandemic and added that he is indeed going forward with the idea of the Fight Island.

“‘Fight Island’ is real. It’s a real thing. The infrastructure’s being built right now, and that’s really going to happen and it will be on ESPN,” he added.

UFC 249 was scheduled to be headlined by Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje after the intial main event between Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov fell through due to Khabib being stuck in Russia due to the pandemic.