Frank Trigg: “There’s no way” to make fights safe during pandemic

Former UFC star and current MMA referee Frank Trigg doesn’t think there’s any way for fights to be promoted safely during the coronavirus pandemic.

Trigg weighed in on the topic in a recent interview with MMA Junkie Radio.

“There’s no way to make something like this safe until we understand what we’re dealing with,” Trigg said. “How can we counter it? Is there going to be a vaccine for this thing? There’s no way to make these things safe until we figure this out. The same thing with polio, same thing with leprosy. Until we figure out what it actually is, how it actually progresses, what is actually happening with it, there is no way to make a sporting event safe.”

While many MMA promotions have effectively shut down during these early weeks of the pandemic, UFC President Dana White has been determined to keep business running as usual throughout. White has been adamant staff and fighter safety will be a key focus of he the promotion’s next card, scheduled for May 9, but Trigg doesn’t believe it’s possible to promote a card safely.

By his estimation, all it will take is one asymptomatic person on-site to lead to disaster. He provided the following example:

“Say one camera guy, he’s three feet away,” Trigg said. “He’s trying to practice social distancing, but he’s three feet away, but what happens? He goes to a grocery store. A person has COVID. The person who has COVID doesn’t think he has COVID. The camera guy doesn’t think he has COVID because he has a mask on, he’s walking through. They touch with no gloves a thing of ketchup, they put it back, they don’t want to take it, they want something else. That camera guy then picks up that COVID infected thing of ketchup, puts in his bag, goes out and buys it and goes home. Now he’s got COVID in his house.

“But fight’s on Friday, this is Tuesday, he’s not showing any signs. Nothing’s happening. He’s a camera guy not in touch with everybody, but he’s at cage-side,” Trigg added. “He has COVID, but he doesn’t realize it. They don’t know they have it. … All of a sudden he started coughing a little bit, the fighters are below him because he has to get a shot, now they’ve been exposed, that whole group.”

What do you think of this assessment from the UFC veteran Frank Trigg?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 4/22/2020.