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By Cassandra Cousineau, LVSportsBiz.com UFC Writer
You are one of Las Vegas’ best entertainment providers and you have 48 hours to reshuffle the talent to follow through on your Pay-Per-View event.
Few can pull this off.
But UFC did Saturday night.
The Las Vegas-based MMA promoter re-arranged UFC 279 at T-Mobile Arena because the top-of-the-card, headline fighter, top prospect Khamzat Chimaev, missed weight by seven and a half pounds.
Instead, UFC was left Saturday with having to use generic UFC backgrounds without names and sponsors.
Yet, if there was a sports organization who could re-shuffle the deck and put on a fight show under these types of dire circumstances it was UFC.
UFC Prez Dana White had different faces at the top of the card with Nate Diaz vs Tony Ferguson, and Chimaev vs Kevin Holland with a Hail Mary on the NFL’s opening weekend of the 2022 season.
The original headliner, Chimaev, was originally scheduled to fight Diaz.
Except Chimaev tipped the scales heavy — very heavy — for their scheduled 170-pound scrap. The Chechnyan-born Swede was 7 1/2 pounds over the welterweight limit for his fight and was dropped to co-main against Holland.
Are you following all of that? Well, that big weight issue will get the attention of the Nevada Athletic Commission.
White announced the changes to Saturday’s lineup Friday afternoon on ESPN and his Instagram at the same time. He also commented on the medical issues related to Chimaev as he attempted to cut weight.
“He was very, very lean already and he should have come in on weight,” White said. “He started to cut weight and he started locking up and cramping and all the things that happen from a bad cut.”
White explained the Commission’s role in the decision. “Unlike 10 years ago when we were doing this, they call in, we send a doctor up and a doctor determines whether he should keep cutting weight or not and the doctor told him he shouldn’t. It was decided that he shouldn’t.”
White can pull off this re-shaped event literally within hours because of his power within UFC.
What could potentially be the worst nightmare for any sports organization was like Groundhog Day for UFC. The reshuffled lineup rivaled the level of fight show changes in 2018 when UFC moved an entire fight show from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.
The entire UFC 232 event, which involved 26 fighters, including a historic match between top women fighters Cris Cyborg and Amanda Nunes, was moved to the Los Angeles Forum on six days notice after headliner Jon Jones failed a drug test.
The Nevada Athletic Commission refused to allow allow Jones to do battle against Alexander Gustafsson in Las Vegas on Dec. 29, 2018.
But White, who enjoys pointing out he’s in the fight business, made sure the show went on.
Like he did this week.
From a marketing standpoint, the new UFC 279 match made sense given how Chimaev vs. Holland almost happened backstage at Thursday’s UFC 279 press conference.
According to Chimaev’s coach, Andreas Michael, Chimaev connected with a boot to Holland’s chest — a skirmish that prompted White to cancel the press conference after what he called “big sh*t show” happening. The press conference had already been delayed by nearly 30 minutes.
LVSportsBiz.com was actually at the mic asking questions of Holland and his original opponent, Daniel Rodriguez, as the skirmish kicked up again.
“Yeah, this ain’t going to happen . . . I am in very weird waters here. This has never happened in the history of this company,“ White said, abruptly ending the press conference.
With Chimaev forgoing any additional weight cut, a lot came down to the rules and regs, and what opponent Diaz was willing to accept with almost zero time to prepare.
Understandably, Diaz refused to continue on the card with a fighter who didn’t make weight. “He’s a Little Leaguer. This is the Big Leagues, and he didn’t make it,” he told UFC reporter Megan Olivi.
How many sports organizations have the capacity to access an entertainment apparatus that rivals network programming?
In 2019, ESPN acquired the UFC television and streaming package under a five-year, $150 million/year deal. The promotion nearing it’s 30th year, is used to pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Thanks to its streaming partner, it experienced one of its most lucrative years during the 2020 pandemic.
In order for UFC 279 to go on, its likely fighters wanted significant pay increases to meet other opponents and brought in the state athletic agency to approve the new matches.
Diaz faced Ferguson in the main event.
Chimaev wasn’t even the only fighter to miss weight. He was joined by three others, Hakeem Dawodu and heavyweight Chris Barnett, who weighed 267 pounds, one pound over that division’s limit.
White, along with UFC Chief Business Officer Hunter Campbell, and matchmakers Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard, run a fight business. It’s one that mandates that they stay prepared for anything to go sideways.
“It’s not by coincidence that we stack guys in the same weight on the same card in case something goes wrong. It worked out,” White said in an interview with ESPN. . “Getting these guys to agree to different fights can be a little tough sometimes. We got it all done. We’re locked in.”
Holland was originally scheduled for a 180-pound catchweight and was already in the ballpark of Chimaev’s weight. Li hit the scales at 171 for his welterweight fight, while Rodriguez made 179 pounds for his catchweight bout.
Chimaev bulldozed Holland from the opening horn and choked him out in the first round, while Diaz submitted Ferguson with a choke in the fourth.
White said attendance was 19,125, White said, though some seats were empty. The gate came in at $5.6 million.
Missing weights has yet another consequence for the promotion.
It changes how they hand out incentives at the end of the night. A fighter who has missed weight can be part of the Fight of the Night honors, as it is awarded to a fight and not to an individual. But they will not be eligible to receive the cash bonus. The amount would instead go to his opponent once again.
UFC’s Performance of the Night bonus, which is awarded to individual fighters, is completely off the table.
As to how all of this will affect the bottom line of the promotion, UFC posted on its website. “Due to a change in the main event, refunds will be available at point of sale.”
“This is what we do. This is the business that we’re in,” White said. “This is the fight business.”
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