After more than week’s worth of efforts to push through, company officials were made to cancel UFC 249. According to UFC president Dana White he was ordered by executives of Disney and ESPN to “stand down,” and things were ultimately “taken out of his control.”
While those orders officially came from Disney/ESPN, which has a lucrative multi-year content deal with the UFC, the mandate for UFC 249’s cancellation apparently came from California governor Gavin Newsom, who personally got in touch with Disney officials.
The New York Times reported the news late Thursday evening.