UFC 249 reportedly moving to tribal land in California
The UFC appears to have found a new location for UFC 249 — a California tribal casino that has been closed for about three weeks since of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sherdog.com and The New York Times report that there are options for the April 18 celebration to take location at the Tachi Palace Casino Vacation resort, a facility near Lemoore, Calif., about 40 miles south of Fresno. The casino, which is on land belonging to the Tachi-Yokut tribe, was shut down March twenty, the Times claimed.
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UFC president Dana White had been seeking for an alternative location for UFC 249 at any time considering the fact that the first website, Barclays Middle in Brooklyn, N.Y., was deemed off-limits by the state of New York in March. Moving the card to tribal land enables him to sidestep state and federal tips prohibiting mass gatherings.
The major celebration of UFC 249 is scheduled to be Tony Ferguson vs. Justin Gaethje for the interim light-weight championship. Ferguson was supposed to challenge light-weight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov in a lengthy-anticipated struggle, but Nurmagomedov is unable to journey to the U.S. from his residence in Russia.
Sherdog claimed Monday that the subsequent four UFC cards will be held at Tachi Palace. There was no indication whether the three functions in addition to UFC 249 would be makeups of formerly postponed functions (London, Columbus, Portland). White instructed TMZ Sporting activities on Monday that he was near to securing a website for the subsequent two months and would start out “pumping out fights just about every 7 days.” He also mentioned he was “a working day or two absent” from securing a non-public island for cards involving global fighters.
The Times pointed out that Tachi Palace Casino Vacation resort has a record with the UFC, albeit indirectly. The facility hosted most of Environment Excessive Cagefighting’s preliminary functions in the early 2000s. UFC’s father or mother organization, Zuffa, LLC, acquired WEC in 2006, and the companies merged in 2010.
