UFC seeks safe shows amid COVID-19 pandemic
Even before they check in to the hotel, every fighter, coach, cameraman, journalist and UFC employee arriving in Jacksonville, Florida, is immediately directed to a screening station. Their temperatures are taken, and their fingers are pricked for a coronavirus antibody test.
And then comes the part that reduces even the world’s most fearsome cage fighters to squirming schoolchildren: a long swab is pushed deep into the back of their nasal cavities.
“That thing in the nose, that was the second time I did it, and it wasn’t good at all,” laughed 6-foot-4, 255-pound Francis Ngannou, who will fight fellow heavyweight title contender Jair Rozenstruik on the main card at UFC 249 on Saturday night.
“It’s too weird. I think I’d rather take a punch than take that.”
The UFC is returning to action this weekend after an involuntary eight-week pause while the coronavirus pandemic upended President Dana White’s determination to keep fighting amid a devastating public health crisis. The mixed martial arts promotion is holding three shows in eight days in a fan-free arena in Florida, where state officials were willing to allow it.
These unique conditions required the UFC to come up with unprecedented health and safety precautions. They’re collected in a 25-page document written over the past six weeks by the UFC’s executives and physicians.
With no blueprint for keeping athletes safe while they compete amid a pandemic, the UFC consulted regulatory officials and outside experts to develop its protocols. They were also helped by Jeffrey Davidson, the UFC’s chief physician, who had already dealt with COVID-19 cases in his other job as head of the emergency department at Valley Hospital in Las Vegas.
The work was done remotely, since the people in charge of figuring out a way for fighters to compete safely couldn’t work in the same room safely.
“We know we’ve got a great plan in place,” UFC chief operating office Lawrence Epstein said. “I’m sure we’ll learn something about how we can do things better or differently or more efficiently, but the key is making sure everything is proceeding as scheduled and trying to figure out whether or not there are ways we can enhance things, or become more efficient. We’ll be keeping a close eye on everything that happens, and we’ll see how things go. But so far, so good.”
The UFC stages shows around the globe each year, and the promotion has plenty of experience in dealing with each location’s unique rules, or creating new testing protocols for everything from HIV to doping.
That experience provided a framework, but the UFC still had to fill it in with details. Their guiding principles were minimization of the size of their endeavor, along with constant social distancing — except inside the cage, of course.
The UFC has trimmed the number of people involved in running an MMA show to an absolute minimum — less than half of the usual 300-plus people, according to Epstein. The promotion also required everyone involved to adhere to isolation and strict social distancing standards whenever possible for the entire week, both in the hotel and in VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.
Everybody working the event, even perhaps some referees, will be wearing masks and gloves. The cage floor, inevitably sprinkled with sweat and blood, is supposed to be disinfected constantly.