Dana White is looking to take the UFC ever further as he closes down the second half of 2021 and looks to 2022. However, two hurdles have revealed themselves. First, Conor McGregor, the UFC’s biggest star, won’t fight again for at least a year, and even then may choose to retire. Second, amid concerns of a resurgent coronavirus outbreak, Dana White may have to deal with the world shutting down once more.
Speaking to Fox News, Dana spoke like the unflappable capitalist he is, declaring that he won’t let a little thing like a global pandemic affect his business.
“I will run you all over”: Dana White has a message for those afraid of resurgent COVID
“I have never seen anything like it. It’s blowing my mind. But, do you know what? Everybody that is slowing down, everybody that is afraid or whatever their reason is, you know, for not wanting to get back to work.
Not wanting to, you know, to run their business, not wanting to get back to normal and full capacity, I will run you all over. I will run you over. No problem.”
When the rest of the sporting world went into hiatus, Dana White built Fight Island on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, enabling the UFC to continue functioning and selling pay-per-views. This was a purpose-built training and competition facility, with its own staff, testing, and quarantine measures. White led by example, seeing opportunity in the chaos of the coronavirus.
“There has never been more opportunity out there than there is right now. You know, I keep hearing about restaurants that can’t open all the way because they can’t get people to come into work. You know, you can’t get an Uber because nobody wants to go back and drive Uber.
It’s a very weird time in this country right now. And, yeah. people need to get back to work and things need to get back to normal as soon as possible.”
While restaurants and Uber drivers probably won’t be able to construct a purpose-built facility in a friendly Arab nation, Dana White vows to plow forward into the unknown.
On the matter of McGregor’s future in the sport, White was more mercurial: “It’s going to take him a year to recover from this one before he can come back, so I don’t know.
We’ll see. The fight game is a tough game and the kid has cemented a massive legacy for himself and made a lot of money. We’ll see how the rest of his career plays out.” It’s clear that White knows as little about McGregor’s future as the rest of us.
Do you want to see a return to Fight Island if coronavirus comes back? What do you think is next for the UFC if McGregor leaves the promotion permanently? Let us know in the comments.
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