Photo: YouTube screenshot
KEEPING THEIR DISTANCE: Israel “The Stylebender” Adesanya faces Yoel “Soldier of God” Romero in the weigh-in before the fight. UFC president Dana White stands between them.
n Joe Allen
Viva Las Virus … Watching UFC matches from the arena floor, there’s no running commentary, just the smell of spilled beer, and two sweaty dudes thrashing each other half to death
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as Vegas would soon be a ghost town, but on March 7, this neon ant farm was still crawling with the world’s bug-eyed tourists. Gamblers were pulling the smudged levers of one-armed bandits as if already immune to the coronavirus. As usual, parents dragged their kids through clanging casino mazes, players huddled around tables, and gangs of young bucks prowled for ladies of the evening. If you’re gonna enjoy Vegas to the fullest, you have to live like germs don’t exist and money trees do.
Fifteen thousand of these yahoos were on the Strip to see UFC 248. Despite persistent symptoms of hypochondria, I joined them at T-Mobile Arena. This was the 50th live UFC event I’ve had the fortune to attend. It was also the weirdest. The nagging fear of a borderjumping virus hung heavy in the air. The ominous vibe culminated when Chinese flags appeared on every side of the jumbotron, casting a blood red glow on the stunned crowd. Of the five fights on the main card, two featured Chinese fight-
ers and one had an Iranian-American. Given the current crisis, what are the odds of that? Female strawweight champ Zhang Weili had to flee China back in early February, as did the welterweight Li Jingliang. They evaded their nation’s impending quarantine in order to spill their bodily fluids all over the Octagon, the cage that encloses the ring. During their fights, the crowd’s trash-talking epidemiologists wondered if they’d managed to avoid the contagion. “Knock ’at coronavirus out of him!” came one helpful suggestion.
ColdType | Mid-March 2020 | www.coldtype.net
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