Different but doable: UFC’s restart a glimpse into how live sports can work

By Case Keefer (contact)

Monday, June 1, 2020 | 2 a.m.

In the final seconds of the first round of the first fight back since the coronavirus interrupted sports in Las Vegas, Chris Gutierrez instinctively rushed at Vince Morales after wobbling him with a combination of strikes.

The UFC featherweight’s advance ended prematurely, however, as his cornermen began shouting instruction frantically.

“Don’t get into a brawl,” they commanded repeatedly.

These types of moments happen hundreds of times at the average UFC event, but the fighter often can’t hear his or her team clearly amid the commotion of thousands of fans in cavernous arenas. That was never the case during Saturday night’s UFC on ESPN card held at the promotion’s local Apex facility, where only essential personnel were allowed in and almost every word muttered during any fight could be heard throughout the room.

Gutierrez started a nightlong trend when he heeded his cornermen’s advice precisely, backed up and proceeded to more surgically disassemble Morales for a victory. Gutierrez chopped Morales’ legs up with piercing kicks until the latter could no longer get off the mat to continue late in the second round, a rare finish and fitting start to a unique night of fights.

Everything felt different at Apex for the UFC’s comeback to its hometown, much more different than came across on television in three events it held at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla. earlier this month. But it also felt replicable, like the major sports still standing without concrete plans to return could build off of the UFC’s blueprint and get back to playing games.

UFC President Dana White says he’s spoken with leaders from several other major organizations since he began staging bouts. He hasn’t tried to pass along much specific advice except for one simple message: Pandemic concerns can be navigated properly; it’s possible to continue.

“They know their business better than I know their business so they have to dive in, take a very time-consuming (look), break down an event piece by piece and figure out how to keep people safe in an environment once you put on the event,” White said. “These guys will figure it out. This really isn’t rocket science.”

Some have colored the UFC as a lawless renegade organization given its persistence in moving forward even while most of the rest of the sports world remains shut down. That characterization might have been justified when White nearly put on a fight in April on Native American land to skirt state mandates, but not anymore.

Now it couldn’t be further from the truth.

For fights to go on in Nevada — the UFC plans to hold four more over the next five weeks — the state athletic commission demanded strict protocols. The UFC complied with them all vigorously.

Fighters and their teams were tested for the coronavirus twice — once upon checking in for fight week and then again after a Friday morning weigh-in.

Both were antigen oropharyngeal (throat swab) tests that took up to six hours to process. In the time between taking the test and waiting for the result, fighters were sequestered in hotel rooms and ordered to come into contact with no one.

More tests were done on the morning of the fight with media and groups like medical staff, television crew and fight officials required to report to the host hotel. Once there, they went through two stations — taking their temperature and filling out paperwork at the first and then having the test administered from a professional in a full hazmat suit in the second. A self-quarantine in the hotel ensued, with lobby doors locked from the inside and no one without consent allowed to enter.

To facilitate all the required standards, the UFC had to rent out an entire local hotel.

“It’s a huge financial burden to do all the things that you need to do to comply with keeping the place safe,” White said. “I truly believe that’s the real reason that you haven’t seen any of the majors come back, because they’re looking at what it’s going to cost them.”

The goal is to make the fights safe, though, and with that, the UFC succeeded. No more than 60 people ever appeared to be in the room simultaneously at Apex, a venue that could have comfortably fit more than 600 pre-coronavirus.

The octagon was sterilized for several minutes in between all 11 fights.

Everyone except the fighters — and one-ring card girl, only when she walked around the octagon — were required to wear a mask at all times, even though they had all tested negative hours earlier. No one tested positive at the first Nevada card and only one fighter — Ronaldo “Jacare Souza” — has been found to have coronavirus out of the 88 scheduled to compete since the UFC came back.

With all the restrictions and limited capacity, the environment at the Apex was more like a TV set than a live sports venue during the fights.

“It’s too quiet in here,” flyweight Tim Elliott told his corner in the middle of his Fight of the Night against Brandon Royval, whom won via second-round submission.

Elliott vs. Royval was only the third fight, and it never got louder. The silence was most noticeable in the main event, which would typically draw a never-ending cacophony of cheers, boos and other arena noise.

Instead, the loudest sound that ricocheted off the Apex walls was the sharp pummeling of body shots Gilbert Burns fired into Tyron Woodley late in their five-round welterweight bout. Burns performed perfectly by winning every round in an upset of the former champion, securing a victory that helps him close in on his own title shot.

The determination of fighters like Burns to keep competing is part of the reason White says he’s so driven to continue putting on events. He hopes others will soon begin following suit.

“The other leagues got to start moving faster so we can really start to feel normal again,” White said. “It’s amazing when you don’t have live sports, you realize how important they really are and how we need them as human beings. It can be done.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.