Dana White Calls UFC 249 Main Event A “No Brainer”

Former WSOF Lightweight Champion Justin Gaethje and former UFC Interim Lightweight Champion Tony Ferguson are battling for the vacant UFC Interim Lightweight Title in the main event of UFC 249.

There are a lot of fans of what has been put together for the UFC 249 main event, which is a fight UFC President Dana White calls a “no brainer.”

“It’s a no-brainer,” he told Brett Okamoto of ESPN (via Farah Hannoun of MMA Junkie). “You have two of the top guys in the world that everybody felt that if Conor was going to get a shot at Khabib, that actually Gaethje should get it before Conor. It couldn’t have worked out any better. You get Gaethje vs. Tony, it’s the fight that makes sense. It’s two of the top guys in the world. Khabib is out, so the winner will face Khabib.”

The winner of the main event is expected to fight UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov next, as Nurmagomedov was originally set to headline the card before coronavirus related travel restrictions put a halt to those plans.

White knows that fans want to see Ferguson versus Nurmagomedov, but he tells them they’ll just have to wait a little bit longer.

“People want it so bad, people want to see this fight,” he said. “People want to see this fight, they want to see it happen. Brooklyn sold out in minutes, so it’s the fight that people want to see. Unfortunately, we’re just going to have to wait a little bit longer.”

UFC 249 takes place on Saturday, April 18 from a secret location with Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.