By Philip O’Connor
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Swedish fighter Khamzat Chimaev missed the weight for Saturday’s main event showdown with American Nate Diaz at UFC 279, throwing the card into further chaos after Thursday’s news conference was ended abruptly due to a violent incident backstage.
The 28-year-old Chimaev tipped the scales at 178.5 pounds, 7.5 pounds over the welterweight limit, with his team saying a “medical issue” prevented him from cutting weight effectively.
The 37-year-old Diaz tipped the scales at 171 pounds, but Chimaev’s miss means the main event is unlikely to take place.
Chimaev may be replaced by American Tony Ferguson or Chinese fighter Li Jingliang, who both weighed in within the limit for their welterweight co-main event.
Thursday’s news conference was abandoned after trouble backstage, with fighters Chimaev and American Kevin Holland getting into an altercation followed by a row between Chimaev and the Diaz entourage.
With both sides of that scuffle well represented in the auditorium, UFC president Dana White closed down the news conference quickly, rather than risk an outbreak of violence.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out where this whole press conference was headed, and there were so many people with all the camps that once that started that would have been bad,” White told reporters in a backstage scrum.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police greeted people arriving for Friday’s official weigh-ins at the UFC’s Apex building.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor; Editing by Ken Ferris)
