Khamzat Chimaev has been the subject of much debate since his antics at UFC 279 that put the entire card in question after coming in nearly eight pounds over the welterweight limit for his previously scheduled main event against Nate Diaz.
The Chechnyan welterweight made headlines on Thursday night, moments before the UFC 279 press conference was scheduled to get underway. Initial reports and then footage released by ESPN showed Khamzat Chimaev getting into a physical altercation with Kevin Holland. The chaos backstage forced Dana White to pull the plug on the media event. Unfortunately, that is not where the chaos ended.
The next morning, Khamzat Chimaev stepped on the scale and revealed that he was significantly over the contracted weight of 170 pounds. It was later revealed that Chimaev was told to stop cutting weight in the early morning hours of Friday, not long before he was scheduled to step on the scale. Many within the MMA community were skeptical of the claim, including former UFC and Bellator star Josh Thomson.
Speaking with ‘Big’ John McCarthy on Weighing In Xtra on YouTube, ‘The Punk’ shared his skepticism of Khamzat Chimaev’s excuse for missing weight.
“Never in the history have I ever seen a doctor tell them they can’t fight. I have never seen a doctor come in while I’m trying to make weight and go, ‘You know what, you’ve lost too much. You shouldn’t fight.’ We’ve seen people get carried to the scale. I’ve seen Gleison Tibau with his coaches being carried from the sauna to the scale and helped up on the scale. You didn’t hear a doctor walk up and go, ‘Yeah, you know what? You can’t walk yourself to the scale, you shouldn’t be fighting.’
“It doesn’t happen guys. And here’s the thing John, I’ve said this how many times? What’s my quote? I have a quote. I used to have a quote on Instagram that used to say, ‘Winning solves everything.’ This is proof that winning solves everything. People forget all of a sudden. ‘Oh, he made Holland look like sh*t.’ The guy [Chimaev] fought was not preparing for a straight wrestler. Look at the guy he was supposed to fight. He was preparing for someone who just walked forward, threw shots with his hands. No real kicks. A different f*cking fight.”
John McCarthy Says the NSAC is Investigating the Physical Altercation Between Khamzat Chimaev and Kevin Holland
During the conversation with John Thomson, former UFC referee turned Bellator commentator ‘Big’ John McCarthy indicated that the Nevada State Athletic Commission was in the process of investigating the physical altercation between Khamzat Chimaev and Kevin Hollan on Thursday before UFC 279.
“If he is a licensed athlete in the state of Nevada, they can control whether he can fight there or not. If they have a situation here where he’s not a licensed athlete, they really don’t have the same control. If it happens in a fight, they have control. He’s a licensed athlete and they can suspend. Once they suspend, that’s where every regulatory body outside of it will usually follow their suspension. Meaning that even if the athlete is licensed in their state and he didn’t do anything wrong in their still, they will uphold what Nevada put out.
“As far as the physical altercation, Nevada has levied fines against fighters for having physical altercations before the fights. You go back to Conor [McGregor] and the Diaz brothers. Remember when they were throwing Monster drinks and water bottles and stuff like that. They got fined.”
Should Khamzat Chimaev and/or Kevin Holland receive a fine from the Nevada State Athletic Commission, neither would have to pay up immediately, but the next time they attempt to get licensed in the state, they would likely be forced to settle the debt before being granted a license.
“The fine is sitting there and then when the UFC pulls you back to Nevada to have a fight and you go to get licensed because your license has run out over the year, you go to get licensed, and guess what they’re going to say? ‘Oh, yes, you can get licensed. In fact, you owe us $25,000. You remember this fine, you still haven’t paid it.'”
While state athletic commissions will typically stick together in a situation where a fighter is suspended, that is not necessarily the case when a fine is issued. A fighter could theoretically avoid a fine by simply asking the promotion to not book them in the state that issued the fine. They would continue to be free to compete in any other state. During the conversation, John McCarthy indicated that some fighters have done this in the past, but did not name anyone specific.
