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UFC 249 showed the potential, and the limits, of sports in pandemic

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Morning, friends. How was the weekend? A lot like the last six, right? Well … except for the fact that we had sports back! Or at least a highly sports-like product.

The UFC returned to our pay-per-view channels Saturday night with UFC 249, a highly orchestrated, highly secured affair with no fans in attendance. Say what you will about mixed martial arts — whether you think it’s the purest of all sports, the future of American sports, or human cockfighting — what’s indisputable is that the UFC’s Dana White dragged his entire sport back out of quarantine before any other major sport.