His attempt to stage UFC 249 on April 18, in the middle of a pandemic, was relentless and at times ridiculous. Yet until the bitter end, he never stopped trying to make it happen.
There was pushback from all sides — from politicians and sanctioning bodies and medical commissions and media. Russia closed its borders. California tried to shut everything down. Plenty of other states wouldn’t even hear him out.
He found enough fighters for an appealing pay-per-view. He found a location, the Tachi Palace Casino Resort, on tribal land that could evade regulators.