Khamzat Chimaev certainly had an eventful fight week for UFC 279.
Chimaev (12-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) stayed unbeaten when he submitted Kevin Holland (23-8 MMA, 10-5 UFC) in the first round in dominant fashion in the UFC 279 co-main event. But that wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Far from it, in fact.
Chimaev was supposed to fight Nate Diaz in the main event, in which he was as much as a 14-1 favorite. But after several days of incidents involving Chimaev – an altercation with Paulo Costa at the UFC Performance Institute, then backstage shenanigans at the UFC 279 news conference that helped lead to the decision to cancel the press event altogether – he missed weight in massive fashion Friday.
His 7.5-pound miss was so big that the Nevada Athletic Commission wasn’t going to let him fight Diaz, who hit his mark on the scale. So the UFC had to shuffle things around, and Diaz fought Tony Ferguson, and Chimaev fought Holland at a 180-pound catchweight.
The pre-fight antics aside, as well as his post-fight interview antics in which he seemed to be very much intent on making himself the UFC’s newest villain that many fans will love to hate, the weight miss could be a problem for Chimaev if he wants a shot at the welterweight title. If he can’t be trusted to make weight, the UFC might be reluctant to count on him to be on target when it really counts for a title fight.
So should the members of the UFC brass let him back to welterweight? Or should they push him up to middleweight?
That’s the question we asked our “Spinning Back Clique” panel of Brian “Goze” Garcia, Mike Bohn and Danny Segura, who discussed the topic with host “Gorgeous” George Garcia. You can watch their conversation in the video above, or check out this week’s full episode below.
