The UFC will return to live action on Saturday for the first time in 56 days when UFC 249 comes from the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida and there have been many questions raised about the medical side of this event. The main question involves around COVID-19 testing for fighters and people working the event and UFC president Dana White has been somewhat vague to the media about giving details.
While White may be vague on the medical side of the event, John McCarthy revealed on his podcast, Weighing In that the UFC Chief Medical Physician Dr. Jeff Davision and Dr. Don Muzzi, the president of the Association of Ringside Physicians will both be working Saturday’s fight card.
“UFC 249 point two, everything is being down above-board as good as they can do it,” McCarthy said. “I can tell you that Jeff Davidson, doctor for the UFC, who I worked with for years. He was part of the Nevada Athletic Commission. He was an outstanding ringside physician. Great guy. He’s working with Don Muzzi, who is the actual president of the Ringside Physicians Association, who is another doctor who will be in Florida. And they putting together this thing that the UFC is going to follow. That’s the protocol that they are going to have in. Who’s allowed in. What they are allowed to do. They are doing everything they can to progress the fights forward. To start taking that step that we all need as just civilians. We got to get back to that normal. Get back to doing things like we kind of did. Obviously no fans. We can’t ask the UFC to be perfect. No one can be perfect. All you can ask is for them to do the best job they can do in keeping people safe and that’s what they are trying to do.”
Does this news change your thought process on Saturday’s UFC 249, if you had any concerns about the medical side of the event? Send me a tweet as Daniel and I will be discussing this aspect of UFC 249 on Wednesday’s episode of The MMA Report Podcast.