By: Ronan McEvoy
Over the span of 48 hours before UFC 279, the MMA community was in shock at the changes and events that led up to the main card.
On Sept. 8, fans were getting ready to tune into the press conference to see the six fighters, involved in the final three fights of the night, get into a war of words before the fights. However, before the event started Khamzat Chimaev got into more than just a war of words with fighters in the back.
Chimaev got in a back and forth with Kevin Holland before Chimaev threw a kick at Holland’s chest resulting in security to rush the pair immediately. Around this time Nate Diaz and his crew entered the backstage area and got into their own war with Chimaev and his teammates.
“I saw the video of the fight on Twitter,” said Marc Cohen, senior UFC fan. “It was the first time I saw two guys really go at it before a fight. It was crazy.”
This resulted in the UFC trying to figure out a plan to continue with the press conference without having to worry about fights breaking out on stage in front of the fans and media. The plan was to have two fighters on the stage at one time rather than the originally intended six.
Kevin Holland and Daniel Rodriguez were the first fighters on the stage, but they were only on stage for four minutes before Dana White decided to cancel the press conference to handle the investigation on what happened in the back and to prevent any scenario of another fight breaking out.
On Sept. 9, the fighters weighed in early morning to make their fights official. The weigh-ins were going to plan as fighters were coming in and making weight for their bouts, until Chimaev came in.
Chimaev weighed in 7.5 pounds over the agreed upon weight limit. Chimaev showed no signs of compassion for his mistake, instead he flashed the bird at the media.
“I don’t think Khamzat should fight at welterweight,” said Chris Palko, senior UFC fan. “He’s entertaining and all but if you can’t make weight then it can ruin his body and also ruin the card for the rest of the fighters.”
Diaz made it known that he would not fight Chimaev, due to the weight difference, so the UFC had to scramble to make new fights that worked and made everyone happy. After a few hours the new fights were announced. It would be Nate Diaz against Tony Ferguson in the main event and Khamzat Chimaev against Kevin Holland in the co main event.
These new matchups ended up being heavily supported by UFC fans online. The long-awaited bloody war between Diaz and Ferguson was something fans had been wanting for years and they saw it as a better final fight than against Chimaev. The fight between Holland and Chimaev seemed to make more sense as they were both younger and both looking to get to the top of their divisions.
“I think the original matchups were not as good as the new main card,” said Andrew Elman, senior longtime UFC fan. “It was Nate Diaz’a final fight on his contract. It felt wrong to toss the legend to the Wolf Khamzat.”
When the fans finally got to see their long-awaited dream of Diaz and Ferguson, it was kind of a letdown. Now it is obvious this fight wasn’t going to be what we thought it would be years ago. These guys were training for completely different opponents and Diaz mentioned after the fight that he didn’t even train his stand-up game because he expected to wrestle the whole time in his matchup with Chimaev.
The fight was mostly stand up and the two traded some good shots against each other, but Nate was gassed early. There were a few moments where he stood in the octagon with his hands on his knees or he leaned against the cage. Ferguson mentioned before the fight that he had a lot of respect for Diaz, and it showed, but he may have had too much respect because he never tried to go after Diaz when he showed these obvious signs of slowing down.
The fight went on and Diaz eventually won by a guillotine choke in the fourth round. Diaz said in his post-fight interview that he’s going to leave the UFC for a bit to “master another sport”, but he will be back.
Chimaev and Holland fought in the co main event and Chimaev came out and dominated Holland with an immediate take down and top pressure. He was all over Holland and kept adjusting positions before getting him in a D’Arce choke and submitting him in the first round.