After a crazy week that included the cancellation of his pre-fight press conference due to several fights between athletes backstage, White’s team was informed early Friday morning that Chimaev was nowhere near the welterweight limit for his scheduled fight vs. Nate Diaz. Ultimately, Chimaev hit the scales at 178.5 pounds – 7.5 kilograms over the limit for a non-title fight at welterweight. “We knew he was having trouble cutting early,” White revealed at the UFC 279 post-fight press conference. “We knew he was going to lose weight. All this happened and we had to deal with it. I just couldn’t wait to finish tonight. “We knew from the moment he wasn’t going to make weight that the fight wasn’t going to happen. Forget Nate, the committee wouldn’t let the fight happen with that much of a weight difference. You immediately start getting a job to understand it.” The changes ended with Diaz facing Tony Ferguson in the main event, while Chimaev switched gears to a 180-pound catchweight bout against Kevin Holland. The weight loss ultimately cost Chimaev the opportunity to enter his first UFC pay-per-view, but he still made the most of the situation by submitting Holland with a D’Arce choke just over two minutes into the first round. “I don’t know if anyone expected him to do exactly what he did,” White said of Chimaev. “You don’t know what to expect from this guy. This is like his fourth fight where he’s never landed a punch. “He’s an absolute monster of nature, and I don’t think anyone expected that, especially against Kevin, who’s 6ft. To say that anyone expected this, there is no way people expected it. I did not expect that.” While the UFC president was impressed by Chimaev’s performance, he certainly wasn’t happy with his weight issues that threw the entire card into turmoil just 24 hours before the event. That’s why White would like to see Chimaev consider a move to middleweight, where he has fought in the UFC before, so future problems like this could be avoided. “It’s a problem,” White said. “This is a problem that he lacked weight. I do not know. We have to see it and understand it. What makes sense is to fight [185 pounds]so we’ll see. “It is what it is. It happened. We’ll come back this week and come up with a plan and probably have him fight [185].” White didn’t completely close the door on Chimaev returning to welterweight, though he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about the idea based on what happened at UFC 279. “Since he just hasn’t made weight, I don’t know,” White said when addressing Chimaev’s future. “There’s a lot of potential for him. Probably at 170 or 185.”
