MMA Fighting - Reaction | UFC 279 Press Conference Cancelled By Dana White

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Dana White described the scene as an “absolute s*** show” before the UFC 279 press conference was set to kick off, and once it did, it didn’t last very long.  MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and José Youngs — who joins from Las Vegas — react to the press conference being abruptly halted, what has been told to MMA Fighting about what may have went down backstage between Khamzat Chimaev, Kevin Holland, Nate Diaz, and more.  Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jose Youngs: @JoseYoungs Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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reacting to a bit of craziness on this Thursday evening. We're a little over 48 hours away from UFC 279, and things apparently got a bit chaotic backstage before the UFC 279 press conference was about to begin, which was scheduled to have appearances along with Dana White from Hamzaa Chimayef, Nate Diaz, Tony Ferguson, Li Jing, Liang, Kevin Holland, and Daniel Rodriguez. UFC president, Dana White, came out,

got on the microphone, said it was, quote, an absolute shit show backstage. He then said he was going to bring fighters out in pairs. We got to see Kevin Holland and Daniel Rodriguez come out. Things got started a little bit. And after a brief conversation,

we saw between Dana White and a couple of individuals, some UFCPR was up there as well. Dana White cancels the press conference all together saying, quote, this ain't going to happen. I apologize everybody. I'm in very weird waters here.

This has never happened in the history of this company. Trust me, when I tell you, this is the right decision not to do this press conference right now. For everybody's safety, this is the right decision. I apologize. Thanks for coming. White then spoke with members of the media, said things happened backstage.

He wouldn't get into total specifics, but when asked about a report from our own Ariel Hawani, saying that initially started with Kevin Holland and Hamzaa Chimayev, White confirmed, at least to his knowledge, that that was the case. However, I've learned something else, and I will talk about that in a moment, because there's a lot to unpack. There's insight. Not a ton of information, honestly. I just found out something like literally before we went live that I will share

at a moment. But some members of the M.A. Fighting team got a few things you may have seen on the website. The word chaos is used a few times. Craziness. So with that set up, if you will, let us bring in the man who is in the building for it all. Jose Young's.

Jose, it is like New England weather at these UFC fight weeks, isn't it? The temperature's one way. Just wait a few minutes and everything can change. quickly and that's what seemed to happen a little while ago. So what was your reaction to all this? How are the fans in the building? Could you feel the tension in the air? No. And that's why this kind of caught everyone off guard. We saw some weird movement before, like obviously everyone saw Kevin Holland and Dana Rodriguez come out and they did their press

conference before it got canceled. But we saw UFCPR and Dana White and security like rearranging the name tags on the table. Like they moved Kevin Hollins to the other side and then they moved it back and then they were the comrade events to the ends. They were just like rearranging the names a lot. So we're like something's happening. Like maybe they didn't think Kevin and Hamza should be next to each other and then next to you know this happened. So obviously I don't know all the details. I've heard some things from people that were backstage, but I don't know what's true because I've heard a lot of different stories. All I know is Dana White said that Nate rolled like 50 people deep. Hamzaa rolled like 30 people deep and then it was just like a

fracas. It wasn't like one giant melee. It was like a bunch of small I'm not even saying small. It was like a bunch of, it was multiple fights happening all at once. And they just weren't prepared because, from my understanding, I don't think Kevin, I don't think Dana was aware of the history between Hamzaa and Kevin Holland or the War of Words that they've kind of had during Media Day and press conferences and stuff like that. So if they had known that, hey, I don't think they would have invited Kevin to the press conference. And if they did, they would have had a lot more security.

Because like Dana White said, if they were aware that this would have happened, they would have been prepared. and this wouldn't have happened. But yeah, the press conference was canceled. I think it was the right thing to do. I don't know if you guys could really see or tell, but off to the right, there was about 40 people from Nick Diaz's, the Nick Diaz on me and Nate Diaz.

And there was like Jake Shields was there. Yancey Medeiros was there. These were like professional fighters. And they took up a whole section of that lower bowl. If stuff popped off on stage, all of those people would have jumped the barrier. So I do think it was the right decision. I think Dana White made the right.

right call because it was it was very bizarre and it was weird seeing it Dana White react to it in real time like if you watch the Kevin Holland Daniel Rodriguez press conference you saw Dana White like walk off stage for a bit because his head of PR had called him to tell him something and then he came back he canceled it but yes I do believe it was the right call because all kinds of nonsense happening back to the same we couldn't hear it they didn't always surprised we couldn't hear it because apparently it was very loud but oh with the fighters talking and the music playing we couldn't hear anything all right so here's sort of what I've been told. And I'm going to have you fill in the blanks if you can fill in any. So I was told it was initially Holland and Shamaev. Their squads are back there. Words are exchanged, maybe a shove or two. I just confirmed Ariel's report from a little while ago that Hamzaa Shemayev actually push kicked Kevin Holland in the freaking chest, which really popped it off. Dana White said Tiki Goshen, who's not a manager. He broke things up. I was told that as well. And then,

and Nate and his team showed up. As of now, I've not been told anything to sort of lead to why Diaz and the Diaz crew got involved at all of this. But all I know is that water bottles were thrown. It was chaos. Dana confirmed that as well. He said Tiki took a bottle or two off the dome. And I just found out something else that happened from somebody who was there the whole, pretty much the whole time. Apparently, it did not begin with Kevin Holland and Hamzaa Chimaev.

apparently it began with a man who probably deserves a lot of credit for selling this damn event. Apparently, Paul O'Costa found his way back there. And that's how this all started. Paul Costa and Hamzat Shemai have exchanged words. There was no shoving or pushing or anything like that. Then it shifted to Hamzat and Kevin Holland. And then it shifted to Hamzat and his team and the Diaz crew. But someone literally who was back there the entire time,

I asked them if they could tell me what happened. I'm not going to name the name, obviously, but it started with, I was told Hamzat Costa, Hamzat Holland, and then Hamzat's team, Nate Diaz team. And I was like, Hamzat and Holland? I mean, Hamzat and Costa? And he was like, yeah, I don't know what the hell Costa was doing back there, but that's how it started. And then things started getting physical with Holland and here we go.

But this is all just wild. But to me, Jose, I think the biggest catalyst, the one thing that everybody is been consistent as something you said earlier, there was just not enough security to maintain really any kind of order with the amount of people back there. But that's what I've heard. I know a lot of us have reported stuff. I know Ariel's reported a lot of stuff that I've been told already. Some things are just coming in as we're talking right now. But did you hear or have you been told anything that I missed? Because there's obviously gaps here, but I can only go by what I've been told. So I didn't know the Apollo thing until you just said it. But what I had heard, and I don't

know how much of this is true because I've heard it was like from people that were there but they didn't like it wasn't as someone that was backstage like like you had said from what they saw Hamza just walked up on Kevin and just like either through the kick or got aggressive right out of the gate so that's why I think a lot of people thought it was Hamzaa and Kevin like unprompted like Kevin was standing there and Hamzaa just rolled in and just went out probably to react to Kevin saying that Hamzaat's only a gangster when the cameras are on him that's an assumption And obviously then things just kind of escalated and boiled over and broke out from there. And there's a lot of thing.

Apparently, from what I was told, Nate was so hot back there that Tiki Gozen was just standing. Like, he was standing there. Like, he happened to be standing next to Komsat's team. And Nate was like, you with them now? And Tiki's like, I'm just standing here. Like, I'm not even doing anything. I don't know how true that is. I think that's a pretty funny story.

But I didn't know the Paula Costa thing. And I haven't seen Paula Costa at all, but it wouldn't surprise me. He's been, he was lurking around the FI a lot this week. Yeah, so when I questioned the exact response was, yep, don't know WTF what Costa was doing back there, but that's what started. Now, it didn't really get physical between the two. They were just apparently just saying things. And then I guess Shabaev spotted Holland. I guess possibly Costa just got him fired up.

And then he saw Holland and all hell broke loose. But there is no chance that any of these fighters are going to get anywhere near each other tomorrow at ceremonials. We're going to be like, they might as well just put them in freaking phone boots at this point and have them face off. It's going to be like the Connor Habib face up when you had all those police officers, not UFC security guards, like police officers. So I have a feeling like the face office will happen, ceremonials will happen. Dana White says everything is good to go. They just were unprepared for tonight or today. If they had been prepared, he said it wouldn't have happened.

He said moving forward, there's going to be rules on how many people you can roll with so you can't just have an army with you. And his words were, I guarantee you this doesn't happen again. He also wouldn't confirm whether embedded and everyone was rolling back there, but I'm assuming given the fact that Nate Diaz is a YouTube page, Hamza has a YouTube page, and, you know, Paul Costa has a YouTube page. I would imagine we're getting multiple angles from this. It's going to be like the, what's the JFK, the JFK footage that everyone's tries to piece together for multiple angles.

It's going to be like that. It's going to be pretty brutal. And apparently, like, tensions are still very high in Las Vegas right now. But here's something else I heard. And I don't know how true this is. Someone heard that Nate's team tried to get to Hamzat's hotel. That I don't know. That I don't know how true that is, but I heard that from two people.

And it wouldn't surprise me. Would it surprise you? Probably not. No, I would not surprise me at all. The other message I received from my source was that the DS crew is ready to go. And that's the insight. So this is what I was told from somebody who was back there. So there you go.

They saw pretty much the whole thing. And apparently, there we go. I mean, it's just crazy. But here's the biggest, this is obviously very unfortunate. You never want to see this happen. But to end this on somewhat of a positive note, did you see the freaking suit? Lee Jing Liang was rocking on social media, Jose.

That might be the biggest shame in all this. I saw him briefly. him and Tony actually, what you didn't see, they came out. Like, they were next after D-Rod and Kevin, and then Dana was like, this isn't happening. So I saw both of them, like, briefly in person, and they were, like, hyping up the crowd obviously, and then they went back. Yeah, Lee looked like a couple of Billy, but all things aside, any final thoughts, any on-site wisdom you would like to impart upon the fine folks watching or listening right now.

Yeah, it was, it wasn't chaos from where we saw because we didn't see it. It was just confusion. And then it turned into chaos because. once it ended and we hear all the booze and there's like this maps for our people leaving and the PR comes he goes all the media we're going to do a scrum in the back get your stuff now so we all run back there and do it and then Dane is like out of breath during the press conference so yeah it was it was it was it was caught me off guard it called media off guard it caused Dane off guard like we didn't hear anything back there it was just weird it was a weird scene this wasn't the

Connor Habib press conference like we had like you see it all happened it was the weird it was one of the weirdest experience I've ever had at a flight night because we didn't see anything. We just hear about this. It's just, it's strange. I can't wait to see the videos when they come out there. Yeah, I'm sure we're going to see them all on embedded, perhaps. Who knows, Dana said he wasn't going to tell the media like anything specific unless questions were asked. He just said yes or no. And he got into some specifics, but he didn't really get in, he didn't tell the whole tale of what happened backstage because, I mean, he probably didn't even see all of it anyways because he's out on stage and then he's told like, okay, we got to get everybody the hell out of there.

Jose, thank you very much. I know this is a very hectic fight week for you. Thank you to the restaurant that allowed you to do this and give you a somewhat quiet space. Shout out. Oh, no. All right. Well, we might have to...

Shout out to who. We lost you for a second. Oh, we lost him. He's gone. Well, shout out to whoever that is. Maybe we will shout them out during the way and show tomorrow. Oh, there he is. As I'm thanking.

Okay, hello. As I'm thanking them. There you... As I'm thanking them, they're in it goes out. Yeah, shout out to the Crown and Anchor for letting me use the quiet room. Because they're not right on me. There you go. Crown and Anchor, well done.

Jose, well done. Get some rest. Another big day in store for tomorrow. Lots going on. So thank you for watching, everybody. I'm sure more details about this are going to come in. And who knows? This might not be the end of all the chaos because there's video surfacing everywhere.

I see one with Kevin Holland and Darren Till talking to each other in the middle of a freaking hotel lobby. Who knows if and when this will end. But all we know is that UFC 279 is going down on Saturday. All these fights are hopefully going to happen. And we'll have a lot to discuss between now and then. So for Jose Youngs, big shout out to Casey on the ones and twosier. I am Mike Heck. Thank you for watching.

We'll see you tomorrow. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.