UFC President Dana White is more confident than ever that the May 9 (May 10 Philippine time) event of his promotion will push through after a conference meeting with US President Donald Trump.
Trump held the conference meeting with the heads and officials of the professional sports associations in America. The US president pressed his desire for sports events to resume soonest saying, “We have to get our sports back” on numerous TV interviews.
The professional leagues included the NBA, NFL, MLB, MLS, NHL, WWE and UFC among others.
White said he was grateful to Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje for accepting the challenge to headline the card.
“Both guys accepted the fight despite the circumstances that are going on. They just trusted me and just said: ‘All right man. We’ll train. We don’t know where this fight’s gonna be. We don’t know how it’s all going down, but we’re in.’ It’s tough for guys to train. You know, a lot of unknowns,” said White in a recent interview by Dennis Miller on the RT America YouTube Channel.
White said that he, his family and his organization have been diligent in following the isolation directives from the US government and the CDC. But at the same time he said it was important for the public to resume normal activities.
“Instead of hiding from this thing my thought process is always let’s get out in front of this until we beat it. How do we figure out the solutions to these problems? That’s the way that I always think. That’s the way that I’ve always thought,” said White.
“And I appreciate the fact that obviously my employees and my fighters do appreciate that and they stood their ground with me and they were ready to go out and perform.”
While he can comfortably stay at home and quarantine himself White said he will fight to hold his events for the benefit of the public especially UFC employees and fighters.
“Listen at the end of the day—and I don’t mean to say this in an arrogant way or anything like that—I don’t need to do this. I can go home and quarantine myself. Just sit in my house until this thing’s over. And you know, ride this thing out,” said White.
“But I’m built that way. I have a commitment to my 350 employees that work for me and expect to get paychecks and take care of their families and my over 600 fighters who also have to take care of their families.”
