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UFC 249 Cancelled; All Future Bouts Put On Hold

By Amar K

 

UFC 249 which was scheduled to take place Saturday, April 18th has officially been postponed to a date yet to be announced.

Along with UFC 249, all other future events have been postponed as well. ESPN’s Brett Okamoto first reported the news in an interview with Dana White.

“Today, we got a call from the highest level you can go at Disney, and the highest level at ESPN and the powers there have asked me to stand down”. White also stated that a top official at Disney told him that they would like him to stand down as well.

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?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">A statement on #UFC249:

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Dana White has worked rigorously the past few weeks to continue “business as usual” for the UFC. The UFC fight cards for once social distancing and states were banning large gatherings. Dana White went back to the drawing board to devise a plan to make fights happen.

According to numerous reports, UFC 249 was going to take place on tribal land in California in order to circumvent state and federal guidelines. This also would have included bypassing the California State Commission which has suspended all combat sports until at least May 31st.

Dana White has spoken publicly about an island that the organization will use to host fights in the near future. White plans to send fighters there to start living and training there. The infrastructure is expected to take about a month to complete

You can check out the complete interview with Dana White and ESPN below here.