Midnight Mania! Khamzat Chimaev will not be fined for gargantuan UFC 279 weight miss

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Khamzat Chimaev royally screwed up this morning. The Chechen athlete was handed a layup of a match up against Nate Diaz, an absolute softball to further build his star before an eventual title fight. When he missed weight by an astounding 8.5 pounds, three fights were entirely reshuffled to save the event.

The event got better as a result, but still, that’s one hell of a scale fail.

Such scrambling surely cost UFC a good bit of money in negotiations, and that’s not even considering the canned press conference yesterday. Typically, when a fighter misses weight, there’s a commission instituted fight, at least some of which goes to the opponent. For example, Hakeem Dawodu missed weight by 4.5 pounds today, so the Canadian slugger will fork over 30% of his pay to his opponent, Julian Erosa.

Generally, that percentage is directly related to the severity of the weight miss. However, despite missing weight by four more pounds than Dawodu, Yahoo Sports’ Kevin Iole reports that Chimaev will face no fine for missing weight. Apparently, Khamzat is off the hook since his opponent swapped in the process of all the chaos ... despite the fact that he weighed in intending to make Welterweight?

“For those asking, Khamzat wasn’t fined for missing weight. He’s in a new bout at a catchweight and he made that weight. So fines for Dawodu and Barnett because they missed weight and are fighting same opponent. Khamzat is fighting a 180-pound catchweight, so no fine. #UFC279”

One has to question the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) policy here. Chimaev was supposed to fight at Welterweight! He missed weight terribly, and his original opponent has to face a different opponent as a result! It’s a mess, but seemingly, it’s a mess Chimaev won’t suffer any financial consequences for causing.

Unless Kevin Holland chins him tomorrow night.

Insomnia

I don’t know how I can possibly include social media content in this section that does not directly relate to the disastrous UFC 279 weigh-ins earlier today. What else is there to talk about other than the all-time, legendary shitstorm that occurred this morning? It is the only topic that matters right now!

So yeah, here’s a whole variety of reactions and snippets from across the web:

Okay, I guess Ciryl Gane’s UFC timeline is worth mentioning also.

Charles Rosa thinking Leonardo Santos’ retirement post was a death is also too hilarious not to include.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

A huge result from what also looked to be a very fun fight inside Rajadamnern Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.

A beautiful feint to crash forward with the elbow:

Things are rarely going to get better when the last-ditch exhaustion takedown doesn’t land.

Random Land

Juggalos in the wild.

Midnight Music: Folk/country, 1969

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.