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UFC 249 canceled due to Coronavirus

Yahoo Sports' Kevin Iole breaks down the UFC president Dana White's decision to cancel the fights scheduled for April 18.

Video Transcript

KEVIN IOLE: Some will see the decision on Thursday by Disney and ESPN officials to ask for the postponement of UFC 249 as a loss for UFC President Dana White. On Monday, White had announced that, despite the global coronavirus pandemic, he'd go forward with the event as scheduled on April 18 and, as he said, somewhere on Earth. That somewhere turned out to be at the Tachi Palace Casino just outside of Fresno.

But with no TV, there could be no fight card. White did all he could to make it happen and to guarantee paydays for fighters who had prepared for two months to compete.

It's just a bump in the road for White, in my opinion, and he's already out there plotting his next move. Most likely when the casinos in Nevada are reopened, perhaps as early as mid-May, White and the UFC will attempt to put shows on at its Apex facility on its Las Vegas campus.

It was a tough day for White, who desperately wanted to prove the critics wrong and put this show on, but it was only one battle in a much bigger war. And as he has done for so much of the last 20 years, it's usually a battle and a war that Dana White wins.

From Las Vegas for Yahoo Sports, I'm Kevin Iole.