The Bottom Line: Steps to Promote Safety When the UFC Returns

“We have no choice now but to postpone these fights. So we’re postponing the next three events, but Tony Ferguson versus Khabib, April 18, is still on and that will still happen.”@danawhite joined @SportsCenter to address the postponement of upcoming UFC events. pic.twitter.com/FxKOAKnOEv

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) March 16, 2020

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After an extended effort by UFC President Dana White to keep the company’s shows running in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the Ultimate Fighting Championship on Monday threw in the towel for the time being. With no vaccine coming in the near to intermediate future and COVID-19 having expanded so far already, this is not a health risk likely to resolve itself anytime soon. Given the UFC’s clear desire to continue to run shows and the unlikelihood that this will have fully passed months from now, the promotion is highly likely to start running shows again at some point when COVID-19 still lingers as a public safety threat, whether that’s in May or in November.

With the UFC having tabled events, it is imperative that it spends time now carefully considering the precautions it can take whenever it does return. It cannot and should not be assumed that the situation will be better the next time the UFC puts on a fight, and as such, it should be prepared to have an interim period of heightened precautions before things eventually return to normal with events in front of live crowds. These are a few examples of the sorts of protections to consider whenever fights resume:

1. Temporarily End Weight Cutting

Cutting weight weakens the body’s immune system, leaving fighters more vulnerable to disease and more likely to be hit hard if they do become sick. As such, it is worth exploring a period where all fighters are allowed to weigh in a weight class above their current weight class. Heavyweights would have to make 285 pounds. This is basically the system One Championship implemented and the reason Conor McGregor most recently fought at welterweight despite continuing to target the lightweight title. It produced no problems in either case.

If implemented, fighters would not have to worry about depleting their bodies to such a significant degree while the coronavirus remains a threat. It would also provide a test run on such a system in general, which could then be either discarded or continued at the point this crisis has passed. An exception might be made for title defenses in the interim, which would only be a very small percentage of overall fights either way.

2. Encourage Self-Quarantines After Fights

Arguably the strongest argument against empty-arena shows continuing as compared to other businesses that cannot be operated from home is the travel involved. A group of people who take the bus to work at a car wash return to the same community when they are done. By contrast, fighters fly in from around the world and then fly back to their community afterwards. The danger is that fighters will catch the coronavirus while traveling to fight and then unwittingly bring it back to a community that to that point had not been strongly affected.

In order to protect against this scenario, whenever UFC starts running again it should strongly encourage fighters and corner people to self-quarantine for an appropriate amount of time after returning from a fight. Paying the fighters an additional amount for that time would both compensate them for the added inconvenience while also hopefully encouraging the fighters to take the self-quarantine more seriously. Fighters are in a much better position to self-quarantine than members of most professions because they prepare for an event, participate in the event and then are not needed for a while afterwards. Unlike workers who have to take the subway in to work or else give up their salary, fighters can limit human interaction after traveling to their place of work.

3. Make Testing a Top Priority

Presently, coronavirus testing in the United States is woefully inadequate. Hopefully, over time, that will change. As testing becomes more readily available, the UFC should devote whatever resources are needed to test its athletes for COVID-19. The UFC already has an infrastructure set up for monitoring and testing fighters through USADA, and it can use that to also test fighters for COVID-19 once the testing is easier to access. If as an example the UFC tested all athletes five days prior to their fight, the day before their fight and two days after their fight, it would go a long way to limiting the risk involved of spreading the virus.

4. Emphasize the Safety Precautions Being Taken

Whatever steps the UFC takes to make future events as safe as possible, it is exceedingly valuable to highlight these steps during the events themselves. One of the issues involved with running events during the pandemic is the potential to send the message to viewers that COVID-19 is nothing to be concerned about and that life can continue on as normal. It was this type of attitude from citizens and public officials that allowed the virus to spread past the point of potential containment. A big part of the negative response to the UFC’s decision to continue stemmed from frustration that public safety wasn’t being taken seriously.

By taking strong affirmative steps to limit the likelihood of COVID-19 spread and then repeatedly showing those steps to the public, it encourages viewers at home to take similar precautions. We need a careful, conscientious and sustainable approach to safety in order to limit spread over time. If the public treats the eventual return of sports as a sign that the danger posed by COVID-19 is fully over, it could lead to an explosion of new cases. As such, companies like the UFC should not only develop a set of measures designed to limit the risk involved in holding these events, but also strongly highlight these measures to viewers in the future to encourage them to do their best to slow the spread of the virus.

Todd Martin has written about mixed martial arts since 2002 for a variety of outlets, including CBSSports.com, SI.com, ESPN.com, the Los Angeles Times, MMApayout.com, Fight Magazine and Fighting Spirit Magazine. He has appeared on a number of radio stations, including ESPN affiliates in New York and Washington, D.C., and HDNet’s “Inside MMA” television show. In addition to his work at Sherdog.com, he does a weekly podcast with Wade Keller at PWTorch.com and blogs regularly at LaTimes.com. Todd received his BA from Vassar College in 2003 and JD from UCLA School of Law in 2007 and is a licensed attorney. He has covered UFC, Pride, Bellator, Affliction, IFL, WFA, Strikeforce, WEC and K-1 live events. He believes deeply in the power of MMA to heal the world and bring happiness to all of its people.

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