The Ultimate Fighting Championship isn’t having a banner week with lots of drama and modifications surrounding Saturday’s UFC 279 PPV, largely brought on by headlining welterweight Khamzat Chimaev. The Swedish fighter couldn’t wait till he entered the octagon to throw fingers, first getting right into a verbal altercation with middleweight Paulo Costa on Wednesday. He topped that by getting right into a backstage brawl with Kevin Holland on the UFC 279 pre-fight press convention.
As a trifecta of fucking up, Chimaev missed weight by 7.5 kilos on Friday, an astronomical quantity for a pay-per-view major occasion fighter that’s had months to arrange for the bout. Switching a whole card the day earlier than fights is unprecedented as struggle camps specialize for weeks on opponents’ tendencies and find out how to cease particular combating kinds like jiu-jitsu and kickboxing.
Chimaev was scheduled to struggle Nate Diaz in UFC 279’s major occasion, the final struggle on Diaz’s present UFC contract. It’s unclear what would occur contractually, as Diaz is scheduled to be a free agent after this weekend, if he doesn’t compete on Saturday. That led to drastic modifications being proposed to the cardboard. No official modifications have been introduced to the present but, however the proposed modifications could be Nate Diaz going through Tony Ferguson, Khamzat Chimaev really combating Kevin Holland contained in the octagon, and Li Jingliang squaring off with Daniel Rodriguez.
The information convention the place Chimaev fought Holland was canceled, the second such incident to occur on the planet of fight sports activities this week. On early Monday, members of the All Elite Wrestling locker room, together with former UFC competitor CM Punk, allegedly received right into a backstage brawl, after Punk insulted a number of AEW wrestlers at a post-show scrum. Everyone concerned within the struggle was suspended by firm CEO Tony Khan. The proposed modifications to Saturday’s UFC card haven’t been introduced by the corporate as of late Friday afternoon.
Chimaev was a -1000 favourite to beat Diaz, per Caesars Sportsbook, and is seen as a rising star within the UFC. The firm seemingly booked the 28-year-old him towards Diaz to construct Chimaev’s profile on the expense of a departing former star. At Friday’s weigh-in, Chimaev solely shrugged his shoulders about coming in at 178.5 kilos. The UFC’s welterweight restrict is 171.
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