White Eyes Texas UFC Event With COVID-19 Bans Lifted

Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently announced his decision to life the statewide ban requiring masks to be worn out in public to prevent further spread of COVID-19. He also opened the state completely, meaning any and all business can open at full capacity if they choose to do so.

Abbott’s decision was met with mixed responses, with several people applauding him for taking action and allowing people to go back to what life was before the pandemic ran roughshod over the entire planet in March 2020. Other’s, meanwhile, weren’t too thrilled with the decision, suggesting that even though cases may be down now is not to the time to be so relaxed.

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White was among the people who was excited at the news, saying that he intends to be the first sports organization to stage a full event in Texas.

“I want to go to Texas ASAP. I’ll go in the next two, three weeks. I’m ready to roll. We’ll be first. We’ll open this thing up, we’ll sell it out and be on our way,” he said during the UFC 259 media day press conference.

In fact, White was so giddy that he even joked that he’d go as far as to move this weekend’s Sat. (March 6) UFC 259 pay-per-view (PPV) event — which is set to go down in Las Vegas, Nevada — to “The Lone Star State” if he could.

“I’m ready to go. I’d move this one (UFC 259 on Saturday) if we could. I told everybody when this opened up that I would be first and we would go first. And we will. If we could do it, we’d do it.”

White revealed that as soon as he heard Texas had lifted the multiple bans, he called up officials in Dallas to talk about hosting an event there but was met with a resounding “no.” As a result, the outspoken president is now looking at Houston.

For now, all events will be held inside UFC Apex in “Sin City” unless White can convince the higher-ups in “H-Town” to let him invade Toyota Center. He might want to enlist the help of a certain “Black Beast” to aid him in his efforts.