Dana White cancels UFC 279 press conference after “all hell broke loose” backstage: &#82

Dana White was forced to cancel the UFC 279 press conference on Thursday.

The event was scheduled to take place at 4 p.m. local time but was running nearly 30 minutes late with no fighters in sight. White then took the podium and announced it was a ‘shit show’ backstage and instead of doing the press conference at once, the fighters would be brought out in pairs.

Interruptions at the presser #UFC279 👀 pic.twitter.com/9ljnpnRkkX

— Nikhil Sharma (@NikhilSharmaMMA) September 8, 2022

Kevin Holland and Daniel Rodriguez were both brought out and did their press conference and as the promotion tried to bring out the next set, Dana White called off the press conference. He said it would be for everyone’s safety. The UFC boss later said to the media it was Kevin Holland and Khamzat Chimaev that got into it backstage.

advertisement – continue reading below

Due to unforeseen circumstances Dana has called off the #UFC279 press conference pic.twitter.com/OXc3UVriNa

— UFC Canada (@UFC_CA) September 8, 2022

“Yeah, this ain’t gonna happen, I apologize, everybody, I am in very weird waters here. This has never happened in the history of the company. Trust me when I tell you, this was the right decision not to do this press conference right now. (Crowd boos) I hear ya, I’m with ya but for everybody’s safety this is the right decision, alright, I apologize. Thanks for coming,” White said to the crowd who attended the UFC 279 press conference.

Dana White then spoke to the media after the event and added some context to what happened.

Dana White on what happened backstage #UFC279 pic.twitter.com/POQYYURSbQ

— Helen Yee (@HelenYeeSports) September 8, 2022

advertisement – continue reading below

“There was 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,” White added. “All hell broke loose out here. I don’t even know, we stopped it but we didn’t do a good job of not letting it happen.”

UFC 279 is set to be headlined by a welterweight fight between Nate Diaz and Khamzat Chimaev.

The full UFC 279 card is as follows:

What do you make of Dana White canceling the UFC 279 press conference?

advertisement – continue reading below

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.jshttps://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js