This past Saturday’s UFC 279 devolved into one of the craziest 48 hours before an event in UFC history.
Thursday, the UFC had to cancel its press conference when multiple backstage incidents between camps threatened to turn into bigger issues. President Dana White endured the boo birds when the fans couldn’t see the likes of Nate Diaz and Khamzat Chimaev up close and personal.
Then Friday, headliner Chimaev missed weight so badly that the UFC had to shuffle the top three fights – and everyone got a new opponent with just a day’s notice.
Diaz (21-13 MMA, 16-11 UFC) fought and submitted Tony Ferguson (25-8 MMA, 15-6 UFC) instead of a much tougher matchup (at least from a betting perspective) against Chimaev. Chimaev (12-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) dominated Kevin Holland (23-8 MMA, 10-5 UFC) for a quick submission after he beefed with him and his camp before the press conference. And Daniel Rodriguez (17-2 MMA, 7-1 UFC) took a split call from Li Jingliang (19-8 MMA, 11-6 UFC), who was Ferguson’s original opponent.
A lot of people made the argument, in the aftermath, that perhaps Chimaev’s massive weight miss was a good thing, considering the new matchups were arguably more competitive and made for three better fights than what originally were booked. But did the UFC make the right calls now that we have a few days to look back on it?
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.