Everything We Know From UFC 279 Press Conference Being Cancelled

For the first time in the UFC's illustrious history, company president Dana White decided to call off the press conference for UFC 279 that will see Khamzat Chimaev take on the biggest name he has faced in the Octagon so far, Nate Diaz.

"Yeah, this ain't gonna happen. I apologize everybody. I'm in very weird waters here. This has never happened in the history of this company. Trust me when I tell you this is the right decision not to do this press conference right now," White announced to a chorus of boos from fans in attendance.

"I'm with you, but for everybody's safety, this is the right decision, alright? I apologize. Thanks for coming," he added before promptly exiting the stage.

ESPN's Brett Okamoto and Marc Raimondi later revealed that there was a major scuffle Chimaev and Kevin Holland plus one of Diaz's entourages threw an object in the direction of the rising welterweight contender.

Raimondi added that Tiki Ghosn, a former UFC fighter-turned-manager, got tangled up with Diaz's camp as well.

Ariel Helwani of The MMA Hour confirmed in a Twitter video that Holland and Chimaev got extremely chippy, which inevitably led to both parties pushing at each other.

However, no punches or kicks were thrown supposedly.

As for Ghosn's involvement, Helwani noted that he just happened to be in the vicinity of the altercation and stepped in to stop things from getting worse since "there was hardly any security" and was followed up shortly by his dustup with a Diaz entourage member that saw "water bottles being thrown."

White later made an appearance in the post-event media scrum and practically confirmed the aforementioned reports despite not putting out any names on blast before calling everything that went down a "complete [expletive] show" and that "it's bad, it's all bad".

In a follow-up report by Yahoo Sports, three other fighters were involved in their own messes backstage namely Tony Ferguson, Daniel Rodriguez and Li Jingliang, which had White admitting that they did not have enough security personnel for the event.

"What we need to do is look at how this happened and [figure out] why we were unprepared for it. Why weren't we able to manage this backstage area better than we did. We'll be better next time we do a press conference. This will never happen again," White promised the media as quoted by Yahoo Sports.

Instagram user Chris Owens captured footage of Holland exchanging strong words with No. 9-ranked middleweight Darren Till at a hotel after the press conference.

While White is adamant that he thinks the press conference was a failure, the interest that the fighters generated because of how messed up the whole situation is makes UFC 279 an even bigger must-watch event.

It is currently unknown whether fighters will be receiving fines or any sort of punishment for their involvement in the events that led up to the cancellation.