Scott Coker issues statement on Bellator 241 postponement

Bellator President Scott Coker has now issued a statement on the last-minute cancelation of the Bellator 241 card, which was scheduled to go down in Connecticut later tonight.

Coker address this last-minute shake-up, which is of course due to the rapidly spreading coronavirus, on Twitter on Friday afternoon.

The health and safety of everyone involved have, and will remain, our top priority as we move forward. After carefully monitoring the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, @BellatorMMA has chosen to postpone this evening’s Bellator 241 event at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.

— Scott Coker (@ScottCoker) March 13, 2020

We would like to apologize to our athletes and fans, as well as our broadcast partner DAZN, but we feel this is the best decision to be made at this time.

— Scott Coker (@ScottCoker) March 13, 2020

“The health and safety of everyone involved have, and will remain, our top priority as we move forward,” Coker wrote. “After carefully monitoring the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, @BellatorMMA has chosen to postpone this evening’s Bellator 241 event at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.

“We would like to apologize to our athletes and fans, as well as our broadcast partner DAZN, but we feel this is the best decision to be made at this time.”

Bellator 241 was supposed to be headlined by a featherweight title fight between champ Patricio “Pitbull” Freire and bitter rival Pedro Carvalho. The bout was also intended to serve as part of the Bellator Featherweight Grand Prix. Unfortunately, as Coker says, we’ll have to wait for this matchup.

Bellator 241 is the latest in a long list of MMA shows to be rescheduled, moved or canceled outright due to the coronavirus.

Earlier this week, ONE Championship announced all of its upcoming events will go down behind closed doors in Singapore. Shortly thereafter, KSW and ARES Fighting Championship both postponed events. More recently, the UFC moved the upcoming UFC Columbus and UFC Portland cards to its new Apex Facility in Las Vegas. And unfortunately, this is probably just the beginning, as more and more regions crack down on large public gatherings to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Do you think Bellator and Scott Coker made the right decision?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 3/13/2020.