That’s according to UFC President Dana White, who confirmed that the initial episode between Chimaev and Holland started the problems that escalated once he took the stage to start the press conference at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
According to several people who witnessed the incident, Chimaev started the melee when he kicked Holland backstage. Chimaev’s alleged attack is what then erupted into a much bigger issue as security agencies scrambled to get everything under control. The people who spoke to MMA Fighting about the incident asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
“Yes [it was Khamzat Chimaev and Kevin Holland that started it],” White told reporters backstage. “There were a lot of things going on at the same time. It wasn’t just one thing that broke out and happened. A lot of things were happening at the same time.”
Chimaev and Holland had traded insults in interviews and on social media in the weeks leading up to UFC 279 and reportedly had a near-feud at UFC Vegas 21 in 2021.
“So there was security over there, there was no security over there,” White continued. “There was no security there because everyone was doing the other thing and once they started breaking out, it was just like a *** show.”
White blamed the lack of security along with the overwhelming number of people behind the scenes for causing the situation to spiral out of control. He added that former UFC fighter-turned-athlete manager Tiki Ghosn really helped calm things down by stepping in between the warring factions.
“If it wasn’t for Tiki, we’d be in trouble,” White said. “Tiki got a couple for the team and he’s not even in the team. Tiki got two bottles of water on the head, two slaps, kicks. Thanks Tiki.”
Multiple sources also confirmed that as soon as Holland took the stage to start the press conference alongside his opponent Daniel Rodriguez, a second brawl broke out involving Chimaev, Diaz and their respective teams.
It’s unclear if additional fights broke out, but water bottles were thrown between the Chimaev and Diaz camps, according to sources, which was at least part of the reason White ultimately decided to cancel the press conference before things got any worse.
“When you know you’ve got guys who don’t like each other, you make sure they’re isolated, you have enough security around you,” White explained. “You know how Nate and Khamzat are, they could say a few words and we’ve got enough people here to deal with that.
“What we didn’t have enough people for was for everyone to start fighting. When everyone starts fighting and it doesn’t become more than just a fight, this security copes. We were not prepared.”
White promised that security would be beefed up for future press conferences and also planned to address the number of people allowed to accompany fighters to events like this one.
Ultimately, White stated that no one was injured during the melee and the fights will go ahead as scheduled on Saturday night. He added that he did not plan to punish the fighters involved in the various clashes, but he definitely wanted to prevent something like this from happening again.
“That’s what we do,” White said. “This is the business we’re in. This is the fight business. These things happen.”
