The return of fans - UFC 261
UFC has, since the beginning of the pandemic, held a commitment to return to full capacity crowds. Since the beginning of the pandemic we’ve been dealt empty venues in Florida, to an exclusive island in Abu Dhabi, to the small, at home venue in Vegas called the UFC APEX. We’ve watched our favourite fighters confine themselves to a hotel room for days just for a fight, we’ve seen their testing regiment, masking policies and even the short lived position of ring-sprayer to disinfect the ring between fights. The fight world was undoubtedly flipped on its head last march. fast forward a year and we get our first sense of normalcy with the return of fans to Jacksonville, Florida.
In a video Monday night, Dana White officially announced a triple headliner for UFC 261 with the return of fans in a full capacity, 15,000-seat Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena on April 24th. The last event with a full capacity crowd was UFC 248 when Adesanya defended his middleweight championship against Yoel Romero. After that, on March 14th, Kevin Lee took on Charles Oliveria in his home court of Brazil but without fans. After that, we didn’t get another event until may 9th, 2020. Since then only a small, limited number of fans were allowe to shows on fight island in Abu Dhabi.
White targeted a return to Texas earlier this month when the state rolled back their restrictions that kept the company from hosting an event. Although the state showed its willingness to regulate, that was just one roadblock as local government pulled back from hosting the event alltogether, specifically Dallas and Houston.
The hosting of live crowds signals Florida’s confidence in their vaccine distribution efforts to safely host a large crowd event and with Joe Bidens target of may 1st to have every American vaccinated, the state should be relatively close to reaching herd immunity through vaccination efforts. All in all we here are personally excited to get a sense of normalcy this far into the Pandemic.
The full capacity event will feature three title fights a Straw-weight women’s Championship bout between champion Weili Zhang and Rose Namejunas, followed by a Flyweight women’s championship bout between champ Valentina Shevchenko and Jessica Andrade. The main event will be headlined by a Welterweight title rematch between champion Kamaru Usman and former challenger Jorge Masvidal.
