Coronavirus' Impact on MMADana White Declares Handling of ‘Jacare’ Souza Situation to be ‘A Home Run’
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On Friday, it was revealed that Ronaldo Souza had tested positive for coronavirus. As a result, his preliminary middleweight matchup with Uriah Hall was scratched, and Saturday’s card moved forward with 11 bouts at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.
While there were initially concerns that UFC 249 would be canceled
entirely because of “Jacare’s” positive test, UFC president Dana
White believes the entire situation was handled in the best manner
possible considering the circumstances.
“The whole world is weird right now. Everything’s weird. We live in a different world than we did two months ago,” White said at the UFC 249 post-fight press conference. “The bottom line is the system worked. What you don’t want to do is two days after the fight say, ‘Oh s--t, Jacare tested positive. So it worked. The system worked that we put in place. “
The UFC is set to hold two more Fight Night events in Jacksonville, one on Wednesday and another on Saturday. White expects that his staff will become more efficient at putting on a card in the social distancing era as time goes on.
“Without sounding like a jackass, we’re really good at what we do,” he said. “The way that this week went, will just get better. We’ll get better by Wednesday. Then we’ll be better by Saturday. Then after Saturday we’ll start to catch our stride and really get this thing dialed in and get it figured out.
“The longer this goes, the better the testing technology is gonna get and the faster it’s gonna get. We’re gonna prove by next Saturday that professional sports can come back safely.”
Still, questions remain regarding the Souza situation. The fighter informed UFC officials that he had been in contact with someone who likely had COVID-19 upon his arrival in Jacksonville on Wednesday. Despite that knowledge, “Jacare” was allowed to remain at the venue and even participated in weigh-ins on Friday before news of his positive test came to light. White didn’t have a clear answer regarding why the Brazilian veteran wasn’t pulled from the card immediately as a safety precaution. It was only after Souza and two of his cornermen tested positive that they were isolated in a separate location away from the host hotel.
“Yeah I mean, this guy was with the people that he was with the entire time. We kept him away from people,” White said. “Now we know that he has it. He tested positive. We tested him. Now we can help him, too. Whatever this guy’s gonna need, we know he’s positive. I don’t know what he’s gonna need medically. When we’re testing all of our employees and our fighters, we’ll find out who has this thing and we can help them.”
A couple images on social media raised questions about the promotion’s social distancing guidelines regarding Souza. While the middleweight wore gloves and a mask at weigh-ins and stood a safe distance away from Hall, he concluded the proceedings with a brief fist bump of White, who was not wearing gloves. Video also surfaced of Souza in close proximity with Fabricio Werdum, who fought and lost to Alexey Oleynik on Saturday night.
White addressed those issues and attributed it to being part of the learning process. He again re-emphasized that the UFC will get better with more events.
“What I’m hearing about that situation, I know that there was some video,” White said. “That happened, it wasn’t for a long period of time. He went over and did something real quick. The optics obviously look real bad on that one. This was our first one. Even the staredown, he stayed away from me, he stayed away from Uriah, he had gloves and a mask on. Nothing goes 100 percent perfect. We did the best job we could going into this thing.”
White hopes that the UFC will serve as a positive example for other professional sports organizations and businesses when they attempt to get up and running in the coming weeks.
“We can share what we learned here doing three events with other sports leagues who are reaching out to us and asking,” White said.
“A lot can be learned by what we’re doing here. Not just for professional sports, but sending people back to work and lots of other things in life.”
The event itself provided a welcome reprieve for many from the grim reality of the pandemic. Live sports were back, and the UFC was able to do what it truly does best, provide its brand of violence to the masses. In that aspect, UFC 249 delivered, from Justin Gaethje to Henry Cejudo to Francis Ngannou and beyond. Even in normal times, it would have been a memorable card.
White was undeniably pleased with the event, and he praised the state of Florida for its cooperation after the promotion was shut down for attempting to stage a card on tribal land in California last month.
“The Florida Athletic Commission has been incredible through this thing. The governor here has been incredible, and the mayor. This is why we came here first. We’ve got probably 10 places we could go in the United States right now,” White said. “We came here first because these guys have been incredible. When you have people that are willing to work with you the way the commission, the mayor and the governor have here, it’s a no brainer. This is where you gotta go.
“I would suggest anybody else who’s out there right now anywhere in the country or in the world and you’re looking to do your first event back, come to Florida.”
As for the most controversial aspect of UFC 249 fight week? White is adamant that turned out to be a positive, as well. Only time will tell, but White says occasional positive test are part of doing business during a pandemic.
“The Jacare thing’s a home run, too,” he said. “You don’t want people to test positive, we want everybody to be negative. This week we’re gonna do like 1,100-plus tests. Somebody’s gonna be positive. It’s impossible not to be.”
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