UFC 249 Officially Canceled Due to Coronavirus Pandemic

Despite UFC president Dana White's insistence that the event would happen, the UFC 249 pay-per-view was officially canceled on Thursday due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. ESPN's Brett Okamoto broke the story, tweeting out, "UFC 249 has been canceled. All UFC events postponed indefinitely, due to COVID-19. Dana White says he was ready to promote the event but things were taken out of his control. Much, much more on this to come." The fight was originally supposed to happen on April 18 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, but on March 18 the New York State Athletic Commision announced that the event would not be sanctioned.

The show was supposed to be headlined by the long-awaited title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson, but Nurmagomedov pulled out of the fight due to travel restrictions surrounding the epidemic.

BREAKING: UFC 249 has been canceled. All UFC events postponed indefinitely, due to COVID-19. Dana White says he was ready to promote the event but things were taken out of his control. Much, much more on this to come.

— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) April 9, 2020

White claimed in an interview with TMZ earlier in the week that he was planning on securing a private island to host events, leading to many fans making comparisons to Mortal Kombat and Enter The Dragon.

"I am a day or two away from securing a private island. I have a private island that I've secured; we're getting the infrastructure put in now, so I'm gonna start doing the international fights, too," Whte said.

"With international fighters, because I won't be able to get international fighters into the U.S., I have a private island that I'm gonna start flying them all in and doing international fights from there. So as of April 18th, the UFC is back up and running," he added.

Photo: Getty/Jeff Bottari / Contributor