Of course, the U.F.C.’s president, Dana White, would have preferred not to take a hiatus at all, even as the rapid spread of the virus shut down sports events from the N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments to the Masters, and forced the N.B.A., N.H.L., M.L.B. and other leagues to suspend their schedules. Instead White pressed forward with plans to stage U.F.C. 249 on April 18, looking toward a lightweight title matchup in Brooklyn between the Russian Khabib Nurmagomedov and the American Tony Ferguson that had been years in the making.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/sports/what-time-is-ufc-249.html