'All hell broke loose' at the UFC 279 pre-fight press conference, according to Dana White.
The outspoken UFC President detailed quite the hectic situation that caused the cancelation of this evening's presser that unofficially kicked off UFC 279 weekend.
“Let me just start out by saying I’m not going to tell everybody what went on back here," White told MMA Junkie during a make-shift media scrum following the scuffle.
“Multiple crazy – I don’t even know what to call it. However many years, 22 years, however long I’ve been doing this, we’ve never had an incident like today. All hell broke loose out here. I don’t even know how to (say it). We stopped it, but we didn’t do a good job of not letting happen. I just don’t know."
Per White, the melee got 'very physical' and included many objects being tossed several directions. Following a bit of a smaller altercation, White decided to have the three top main card's fighters come out in pairs instead of all six participating members coming out at once. Kevin Holland and Daniel Rodriguez would answer just a few questions from the media in attendance, however, 'all hell broke loose', which caused White to ultimately nix the presser altogether.
All that is currently known is that the camps of Nate Diaz and Khamzat Chimaev were heavily involved, but according to many on-site accounts, Diaz's entourage was nearly 25-people deep in comparison to Chimaev's reported smaller group.
“The Diaz camp showed up with 57 people. Khamzat’s team had 30-something people. Then you had multiple guys going on back here. It was crazy. It was absolutely nuts back here. … You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out where this whole press conference was headed," White explained.
“We come here with a skeleton crew for the press conferences,” White said. “There aren’t nearly as many people as there are for the ceremonial weigh-ins. We’ll have tons of security, Metro, it’s a totally different ball game. This will never happen again.”
Fightful will have complete coverage of UFC 279 beginning on Saturday, September 10 at 6:00 p.m. EDT/3:00 p.m. PDT.
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