On Saturday, May 9th, the world will get its return of Ultimate Fighting Championships or Mixed Martial Arts, but this Pay-per-view event is going to look a whole lot different than what UFC fans have seen before. The event will take place in Jacksonville, Florida at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.
The first of many changes made due to the coronavirus pandemic, is the fact that this event will have no fans in attendance other than essential personnel and broadcasting production crews. Another change that fans will be seeing on Saturday night is the fact that broadcast teams will be sitting tables apart from one another and the idea of not having post fight interviews in the octagon will take affect at the event as well. Another change that we will start seeing from the UFC for the future until this pandemic passes over is having all crew members wearing protective equipment, masks, and gloves in order to help infecting others. There will also be a break in between each fight in order for personnel to go into the cage and having the opportunity to disinfect the octagon to help prevent anything spreading.
Rather than what we see on the TV from the Pay-per-view, there will be many changes made behind the scenes as well for the first fighting event in over a month. The number of people on the production crew has been reduced by about 50, from a normal group of about 130 to somewhere in the 80s. The number of personnel in the production truck will be limited with the use of mobile units, and those who remain in the truck will be separated by plastic partitions. Social distancing will be practiced in the arena area by staff and media members, of which fewer than 20 will be present.
Tony Ferguson will face off with Justin Gaethje for the interim Lightweight championship in the Main Event as Henry Cejudo defends his Bantamweight championship against Dominick Cruz in the co-main event.
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