Gregory Payan/Associated Press
Dana White was, well…Dana White.
The UFC czar was defiant, demonstrative and determined to insist—repeatedly—that his renegade combat sports machine was ready to proceed with plans to produce a pay-per-view event next weekend in the semi-arid comfort of Lemoore, California.
But where common-sense counsel from health care professionals, government officials and nearly everyone else beyond the brotherhood had failed, an apparently unflinching directive from an even higher authority—White's deep-pocketed partners at ESPN—didn't.
White, whose company was revising matchups and releasing broadcast information as recently as this week, told ESPN's Brett Okamoto that a Thursday phone call from "powers that be" at the cable conglomerate included a request that the UFC "stand down and not do this event next Saturday" in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic that's wreaked domestic havoc.