Welcome to F4WOnline.com's live coverage of UFC 279: Diaz vs. Ferguson, emanating from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
It has been a crazy week in Las Vegas as the Octagon is back home with a fight card that saw numerous changes just 24 hours before the event, ending up with a welterweight headliner featuring one of the most popular fighters in UFC history in perhaps his final UFC fight.
Nate Diaz steps inside the Octagon for perhaps the final time when he takes on Tony Ferguson in the five-round headliner after a crazy series of events saw this fight made on Friday. Diaz was originally slated to fight Khamzat Chimaev in the main event, but Chimaev missed weight by seven-and-a-half pounds and Diaz refused to fight him, so Ferguson was moved into the headline slot.
Chimaev will remain on the card, but he will now fight Kevin Holland in the co-main event, which will also be five rounds. Holland was scheduled to fight Daniel Rodriguez in a 180-pound catchweight fight, but was shifted to fight Chimaev after the two had a heated exchange that nearly led to blows backstage at the UFC 279 press conference on Thursday, and because they weighed within a pound of each other as well.
Two fighters impacted by those changes, Li Jingliang and Daniel Rodriguez, will now fight each other after agreeing despite an eight-and-a-half-pound weigh-in difference between the two. Also on the main card is a women's catchweight bout pitting Irene Aldana against Macy Chiasson, and an exciting light heavyweight bout between Johnny Walker and Ion Cutelaba.
Follow along with our live coverage of the event beginning at 6 PM eastern time with preliminary action all the way thru the main card.
We are looking for your thoughts on tonight's event, so send a thumbs up, a thumbs down or a thumbs in the middle along with a best fight and a worst fight to Dave at dave@wrestlingobserver.com.
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> Welterweights- Darian Weeks (5-2, 0-2 UFC) vs. Yohan Lainesse (8-1, 0-1 UFC)
> Women's Strawweights- Melissa Martinez (7-0, 0-0 UFC) vs. Elise Reed (5-2, 1-2 UFC)
> Bantamweights- Chad Anheliger (12-5, 1-0 UFC) vs. Alatengheili (15-8-2, 3-1-1 UFC)
> Women's Featherweights- #15 WBW Norma Dumont (7-2, 3-2 UFC) vs. Danyelle Wolf (1-0, 0-0 UFC)
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> Heavyweights- Jake Collier (13-7, 5-6 UFC) vs. Chris Barnett (22-8, 1-2 UFC)
> Middleweights- Denis Tiuliulin (10-6, 0-1 UFC) vs. Jamie Pickett (13-7, 2-3 UFC)
> 220-pound Catchweights- Jailton Almeida (16-2, 2-0 UFC) vs. Anton Turkalj (8-0, 0-0 UFC)
> Featherweights- Hakeem Dawodu (13-2-1, 6-2 UFC) vs. Julian Erosa (27-9, 5-5 UFC)
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> Light Heavyweights- #13 Johnny Walker (18-7, 4-4 UFC) vs. Ion Cutelaba (16-7-1 1 NC, 5-6-1 UFC)
> 140-pound Women's Catchweights- #4 WBW Irene Aldana (13-6, 6-4 UFC) vs. #10 WBW Macy Chiasson (8-2, 6-2 UFC)
> 180-pound Catchweights- #14 WW Li Jingliang (19-7, 11-5 UFC) vs. Daniel Rodriguez (16-2, 6-1 UFC)
> 180-pound Catchweights- #3 WW Khamzat Chimaev (11-0, 5-0 UFC) vs. Kevin Holland (23-7 1 NC, 10-4 1 NC UFC)
> Welterweights- Nate Diaz (20-13, 15-11 UFC) vs. #11 LW Tony Ferguson (25-7, 15-5 UFC)
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