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UFC and Top Rank are fervently working to host events as soon as possible, and Florida may be the go-to location

Apr 15, 2020, 18:00 IST
Insider
  • MMA firm UFC and the historic boxing business Top Rank are looking to restart their organizations, and Florida may be the go-to location.
  • Florida recently declared WWE an "essential business" which can continue to operate in the State despite stay-at-home orders. Other sports could hold competitions there, too.
  • UFC president Dana White wants to hold a UFC event on May 9, while Top Rank founder Bob Arum said his company could relaunch there in June.
  • The US president Donald Trump is keen for sports to come back after a coronavirus-enforced hiatus. "We have to get our sports back," he said at a White House press conference Tuesday.
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
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Two of the world's biggest combat sports companies are fervently working to restart operations as soon as possible, and are reportedly looking at venues in Florida for their first post-co

The prominent mixed martial arts firm UFC and the historic boxing business Top Rank, both headquarted in Las Vegas, are even exploring possible venues in Florida, according to reports in MMA Fighting and ESPN.

Leagues and organizations in the United States and around the world are currently on hiatus as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic brought sports to an abrupt halt in March.

Though there have been 609,516 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US with 26,000 deaths, the peak of the crisis "could be in sight" according to John Burn-Murdoch, a coronavirus trajectory tracker at the Financial Times.

Live sports has been absent for a month as the disease spread through the States, but one man who misses it is the US president Donald Trump. "We have to get our sports back," he said at a White House press conference Tuesday.

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Trump is looking to reopen his country following a widespread lockdown, and sees key sports figures as economic leaders who can help do that.

"The great Dana White," who is the president of the UFC, is one of the sporting commissioners Trump will be consulting.

White wants to hold an event on May 9

White told ESPN on Tuesday that he is planning for the UFC's return at an undisclosed location on May 9.

There are three UFC title fights planned, as well as many other non-title bouts:

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  1. Tony Ferguson vs. Justin Gaethje (interim lightweight title)
  2. Henry Cejudo vs. Dominick Cruz (bantamweight title)
  3. Amanda Nunes vs. Felicia Spencer (women's featherweight title)

The UFC was previously hellbent on restarting its combat calendar on April 18 with UFC 249, which would have been headlined by the interim lightweight championship bout between Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje.

To circumvent coronavirus-enforced lockdown rules, White wanted to hold the fights on self-governed Native American land at the Tachi Palace Casino Resort in Lemoore, California.

But he had to cancel the whole thing when he got a call from "the powers-that-be" at ESPN and Disney, ordering him to "stand down."

A May 9 show may not suffer the same demise as the doomed UFC 249 event as MMA Fighting reports that California, Texas, and Florida are being considered as potential hosts for the proposed show next month.

Florida is particularly interesting as the governor Ron DeSantis recently deemed the sports entertainment firm WWE an "essential business," which means it can continue operating there despite stay-at-home orders.

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Florida said that "employees at a professional sports and media production with a national audience" were considered essential, so this would extend to the UFC and large-scale boxing companies, too.

MMA Fighting reported that Florida was considered as a host for UFC 249, before White turned to California.The organization even took its show to Tampa for a "Fight Night" event in October last year.

A powerful boxing promoter is also looking at Florida

Boxing's calendar has also been hit by the coronavirus, but one of its most powerful figures — veteran promoter Bob Arum — is looking at restarting a schedule in Florida.

Arum is the founder and CEO of Top Rank which has a lucrative broadcasting deal with ESPN, is a brand known around the world, and has many big-name athletes like Tyson Fury, Terence Crawford, and Naoya Inoue under contract.

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Arum, 88, is considering contacting the WWE to see if he can lease their Florida facility, the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, for behind-closed-doors shows featuring Top Rank fighters, according to ESPN.

He said he's close with Vince McMahon, the CEO of WWE.

"It's very, very interesting, and we're going to be in touch with them," Arum told ESPN. "There's a possibility to use their facility to maybe do events without a crowd."

Arum's timeline for boxing's return is less ambitious than White's with the veteran telling ESPN: "We're still not talking before June."

Arum and White share a bitter rivalry, with the boxing promoter even saying the UFC boss was someone with a "flawed intelligence" for trying to restart MMA in the middle of a pandemic.

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Read more:

A last-man-standing tournament featuring Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov has been proposed to replace UFC 249

Bob Arum says UFC boss Dana White should be 'ashamed' of himself for organizing fights during a pandemic

One of boxing's most powerful men, 88, says he might die before his prospects become champions

A UFC fighter posted 7 nude Instagrams in a row, following MMA stars like Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor, who also famously posed naked

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The UFC president Dana White has been named as the anonymous Las Vegas businessman in a $200,000 sex-tape extortion case

One of boxing's most powerful executives says he is open to selling a stake in Top Rank, and 3 heavyweight companies have talked to him about buying

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