As soon as UFC President Dana White learned that Khamzat Chimaev had lost weight, he realized that a UFC 279 major event needed to be changed.
After a hectic week, which saw the cancellation of the press conference before the fight due to altercations backstage between athletes, White and his team received word Friday morning that Chimaev wasn’t at the welterweight limit in his bout against Nate Diaz.
Finally, Chimaev stepped on the scale at 178. 5 – Chimaev weighed in at seven and a quarter pounds more than the limit for non-title bouts at welterweight.
” We knew that he had trouble losing weight quickly,” White said at UFC 279’s post-fight press conference. We knew that he would lose weight. This all happened, and we had to deal with it. I just couldn’t wait to get tonight over with.
“We knew as soon as he wasn’t going to make weight that the fight wasn’t going to happen. Nate is irrelevant. The commission would not have allowed the fight to take place if there was such a large weight difference. It’s obvious that you immediately get to work in order to solve it .”
The changes resulted in Tony Ferguson facing Diaz, and Chimaev moving into a 180-pound fight against Kevin Holland. Missing weight ultimately cost Chimaev a chance to headline his first ever UFC pay-per-view, but he still made the most of the situation by submitting Holland with D’Arce choke just over two-minutes into the opening round.
“I don’t know if anybody expected him to do exactly what he did,” White said about Chimaev. You don’t know what you can expect from him. He’s in his fourth fight and has never taken a single punch.
“He’s an absolute f****** freak of nature, and I don’t think anybody expected that, especially against Kevin, who’s 6-foot-2. To say that somebody expected that, there’s no f****** way people expected that. That .”
was not what I expected.
While the UFC president was impressed by Chimaev’s performance, he definitely wasn’t happy with his weight issues that threw the entire card into upheaval just 24 hours prior to the event.
That’s why White would like to see Chimaev consider a move up to middleweight, where he’s previously fought in the UFC, so future issues like this one could be avoided.
“It’s a problem,” White said. White said that it was a problem because he had lost weight. I don’t know. It’s up to us to examine it all and find the right solution. What makes sense is for him to fight at [185 pounds], so we’ll see.
“It is what it is. That was what happened. We’ll go back this week and come up with a plan and probably have him fight at [185].”
White didn’t completely shut the door on Chimaev returning to welterweight, though he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about the idea based on what happened at UFC 279.
“After he just didn’t make weight, I don’t know,” White said when addressing Chimaev’s future. There are many possibilities for him. Perhaps at 170, or at 185.”
