Khamzat Chimaev has told Nate Diaz he "got what he deserved" after being warned not to mess with his team at a press conference last night.
The Swede is due to face promotional legend Diaz on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in the main event of UFC 279, with a press conference scheduled for last night. However, the seemingly standard event was called off at the last second after a backstage melee involving the fighters' teams going at one another.
Reports indicate that the incident began when Kevin Holland, who faces Daniel Rodriguez in one of the main card's most exciting bouts, got into with Chimaev and his team. It is said to have ultimately devolved into something of a brawl with both teams as well as Diaz's crew getting involved and a stop ultimately being put to the public press conference.
“I told them: Don’t joke with us,” Chimaev said in Russian, according to a translation by MMA Junkie. “Kevin got what he deserved. Diaz got what he deserved.”
UFC president Dana White was forced to come on stage and inform fans and media in attendance that the event was cancelled after an already lengthy delay, which is standard for Diaz press conferences. He later said in a media scrum that the fighters brought crews that were too big and caused an issue that made the show untenable.
“The Diaz camp showed up with 57 people," White explained. "Khamzat’s team had 30-something people Then you had multiple guys going on back here. It was crazy. It was absolutely nuts back here… You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out where this whole press conference was headed.”
White explained that there weren't enough security people to account for a brawl the size of the one that took place after Chimaev and Holland finally came head-to-head. In combat sports it's rare that events will devolve into scenes like the ones reported last night, but fight week is generally tetchy as fighters cut weight and head into the combat environment.
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“There were multiple things going on at the same time," White also said. "It wasn’t just one thing that erupted and it happened. There were multiple things going on at the same time. So there was security over there, there was no security over there. There was no security over there cause everybody was dealing with the other thing and once it all started erupting, it was just a s*** show.
“When you know that you have guys that don’t like each other, you make sure that they’re isolated, you have plenty of security around. You know how Nate and Khamzat are, they could have some words and we have enough people here to deal with it.
“What we didn’t have enough people for was everybody to start fighting. When everybody starts fighting and there was more than just fighting going on that security was dealing with. We weren’t prepared.”
