UFC249, Pandemic Fight Card and Jon Jones

It turns out I am up for a post this week. Since last week's post I've heard that the UFC were planning on stacking the 249 card. They had planned to add Francis Ngannou v Jairzinho Rozenstruik somewhere to the card. What a fight that could potentially be! There is still uncertainty as to whether or not the card can go ahead though.

There we were at the start of the year looking forward to finally seeing Khabib Nurmagomedov fight Tony Ferguson on the 18th of April and wishing, hoping and praying (if that's your thing) that nothing would prevent it from happening. Then something no one thought would stop it when the fight was announced: a worldwide pandemic. As I understand from a translation of a Khabib interview, Khabib was told the fight would be in Abu Dhabi. So Khabib left AKA and America recently for Abu Dhabi to acclimatise. He found out that United Arab Emirates were going into lockdown and no one would be able to get in or out of the country so he went to Dagestan instead. So the UFC started negotiating with American states to hold it somewhere in the USA instead. Russia has since gone into lockdown preventing Khabib from travelling so he can't get back to the USA. So it looks like the covid_19 pandemic is doing its best to prevent the fight we all want to see as MMA fans.
I heard the UFC are looking to book Justin Gaethje to fight Tony but I, as most fans I've heard, would rather they postpone the fight rather than changing Tony's opponent. Some might have asked why not Conor McGregor v Tony since Dana was going to give him the Khabib v Tony winner but Conor is here in Ireland and we're in lockdown. In the mean time Kamaru Usman has claimed to offer to save the card by fighting Jorge Masvidal but that Masvidal cannot be located by his management. All the while Masvidal, or someone with access to his social media, has claimed Usman is ducking him. Tyron Woodley and Colby Covington are also claiming to be ready to fight. Well Tyron just had a training camp for the cancelled Leon Edwards fight so he should be ready.
I'll be surprised if any fight card goes ahead this month  given the amount of fighters that they want to line up for it and the coaching teams required. The number of people at one event will still be a problem for authorities trying to contain the virus even with a closed event.
In other news, I watched the arrest video of Jon Jones. He pleaded guilty to to the charges and was placed effectively under house arrest, which is not much different to the situation we're already in, and given a probation period and has to do community service. He's his own worst enemy at times.