The show must go on.

That’s how it goes with the UFC, the well-oiled MMA-chine that is heating back up after its annual four-week holiday hiatus, with UFC 283 — the year’s first big pay-per-view event — primed to sate eager fans Saturday night with two championship fights.

Don’t call that 28-day period a break, though. Not when UFC president Dana White rung in the new year getting caught on camera slapping wife Anne White in Cabo. The only break there was what MMA’s most famous face caught by getting out in front of the story. TMZ reported both the video it had acquired of the domestic violence incident — in which the admittedly-inebriated couple slap each other (the wife one time, the beefed-up husband twice) — and the executive’s interview/apology in one fell swoop.

The shrewd move paid off, with many a headline to follow focused more on the mea culpa than the culpability. That’s not to say White got out of this potentially career-threatening mess scot free. You see, as he explains, “Here’s my punishment: I gotta walk around for however long I live … this is how I’m labeled now.” Other than the scarlet letter attached to him, it’s been business as usual through the year’s first Fight Night and entering the weekend’s big show in Brazil.

That includes the debut of White’s pet project “Power Slap: Road to the Title” centered on, of all things, competitive slap-fighters. Yes, the face of a thing called Power Slap actually slapped his own wife barely two weeks before it was meant to debut. TBS pushed the first episode back seven days to Wednesday night, ostensibly in hopes that an extra week of the news cycle would flush out the negative press.

But the show must go on.

Indeed, White has bounced back from putting his hands on a woman — to paraphrase his own nine-year-old comments after the release of video (also coming from TMZ, sans an accompanying apology) showing then-Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocking out his fiancée (and now wife) in Atlantic City, N.J., in an incident that blackballed him from organized football.

To his credit, White made a point when first addressing reporters last Wednesday to discourage those defending him for smacking his wife of 27 years — an unprecedented occurrence, the couple separately claimed. Social media trolls felt compelled to point out that Anna slapped him first, ignoring his grip on her, his comparatively imposing size and the danger each realistically posed one another in the heat of that moment. Even Jamahal Hill, one half of Saturday’s headliner opposite Glover Teixeira for the vacant light heavyweight crown, tweeted, “If you don’t want to get hit don’t hit nobody period!!!#simple.” A notion he attempted to clarify in the replies as “I didn’t say Dana was right I’m just holding her accountable like the world is Dana.”

White was right about another thing as it pertains to the UFC’s hundreds-strong roster comprised of many of the world’s top fighters: “What happened on New Year’s Eve is mine, my mistake, not theirs.” There’s enough room in the fight conversation to both reiterate that White skated past his physical misconduct in a way unlike mainstream athletes such as Rice or any executive of any major sport would for the same violent behavior, as well as highlight that there’s some legitimately thrilling mixed martial arts on tap for the weekend involving the organization he runs.

Never you mind that this championship fight between Teixeira and Hill only manifested six weeks ago. It came mere minutes after the UFC’s first attempt last month to crown a new champion at 205 pounds ended in a draw between Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev. That fight was needed because erstwhile champ Jiri Prochazka relinquished the title due to a shoulder injury suffered in training for a rematch with Teixeira.

The show must go on.

All that aside, Teixeira vs. Hill sets up as legitimately thrilling combat sports entertainment. The same can be said of the co-main event in Rio de Janeiro, a fourth meeting between flyweight champ Deiveson Figueiredo and interim titleholder Brandon Moreno, whose annual series of consistent bangers rests at 1-1-1 and requires a tiebreaker.

Just be ready to pay an extra $5 for these fights. Just before Christmas, ESPN raised the standard PPV price for the third consecutive year. UFC 283 and the rest of the 2023 numbered-show slate will cost you a penny under $80, before sales tax.

And what better time to ask for more money from consumers than for the first event after word broke of the fighter-related news that stands above all else this week: that Francis Ngannou, the unquestioned top heavyweight fighter in the sport, has been granted unrestricted free agency and no longer represents the UFC as its champion. If you’re keeping score, the UFC currently lacks a champion at both heavyweight and light heavyweight.

Somehow, White couldn’t get out in front of the story this time. Oddly enough, a sign outside Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena bungled the announcement of former light heavyweight champ Jon Jones taking on Ciryl Gane — the last man to face (and lose) to Ngannou last January — for the heavyweight title. The writing was on the wall at that point regarding the hulking Cameroonian with prodigious punching power. His exit from the UFC had been a realistic possibility for at least a year. It’s no less stunning that we’re reaching this point though. Ngannou is the first active champion to depart on his own terms since the UFC’s stranglehold on the sport took root in the late 2000s.

White went back to the ol’ bag o’ tricks and sought to paint Ngannou as simply turning down purportedly historic money by MMA standards — which still pales in comparison to what heavyweight boxing stars pull in — to avoid the risks of continuing to face the superior UFC talent pool. Few are buying what he’s selling, though. Four of Ngannou’s last five victories are over men who’ve held either the undisputed heavyweight crown or the interim variety: Gane, Stipe Miocic, Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez. And it’s no secret that Ngannou wants to box, something the UFC has rarely allowed its athletes to do. Conor McGregor facing Floyd Mayweather Jr. was the rare and obscenely lucrative exception.

During his first media appearance since word broke of his departure, Ngannou maintained Tuesday on “The MMA Hour” that he sought a three-fight deal that set up a pair of fights with Jones and a rubber match against Miocic, who handily defeated Ngannou five years ago in his first championship bid. He also revealed numerous unorthodox requests he made in negotiations, including health insurance for all fighters on the roster. For years, the organization has only covered the cost of injuries suffered during one of their fights; beyond that, they’re on their own.

The UFC declined to comment on what Ngannou said Tuesday.

Ngannou or not, the UFC machine will roll forward. They’ll crown a new heavyweight champion, be it Jones or Gane. It’s not as if their title is sanctioned like a WBC boxing crown; the UFC belt, it’s been said, is essentially a prize for being the best fighter on the night the promotion needed a champion. Ngannou takes with him the lineal MMA heavyweight crown, and he’ll carry it until he loses or retires. In the meantime, the UFC will solider on after crowning its own promotional heavyweight champ on March 4.

After all, the show must go on.