The infamous UFC 229 brawl between the teams of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor might need had yet one more participant if it wasn’t for Dana White.
Nurmagomedov crushed McGregor at UFC 229 with a brutal neck crank to record his first successful defense of the promotion’s lightweight title.
It’s protected to say, nonetheless, that the Las Vegas event shouldn’t be best remembered for a way ‘The Eagle’ had his hand raised.
Soon after forcing the Irishman to tap out in round 4, Nurmagomedov sparked a brawl at UFC 229 by jumping the cage and attacking Dillon Danis in his defeated challenger’s corner. Chaos ensued, with teammates of the Dagestani entering the Octagon in pursuit of McGregor.
Meanwhile, the UFC president was stopping one other member of Nurmagomedov’s entourage from getting involved…
Ali Abdelaziz ‘ran’ to affix UFC 229 melee until Dana White intervened
During a recent appearance on the Pound 4 Pound podcast, hosted by Henry Cejudo and Kamaru Usman, manager Ali Abdelaziz recalled arguably essentially the most infamous incident involving one in all his fighters.
The Dominance MMA CEO said Nurmagomedov’s entire team knew something would occur at UFC 229 given the heated build-up and McGregor’s controversial trash talk, and so Abdelaziz got here prepared.
“Every title fight, I at all times wear a suit. For this fight, I wore a white tee, pants, and sneakers. I knew something was happening,” Abdelaziz said. “It was the body language. All of us knew.”
However the 47-year-old’s plan to become involved once ‘The Eagle’ sparked an “ugly” brawl outside the cage was hampered by White’s intervention.
“It was very ugly. I knew something would occur, and I used to be just ready,” Abdelaziz recalled.
“What happened is, I ran and Dana grabbed me. He’s my big brother. I respect the s— out of Dana. … He grabbed me and he was like, ‘Listen, when you do anything, they’ll suspend you and they’ll suspend every fighter. Help me calm this thing down!’
“I just really desired to get to 1 guy, and I ended up attending to him slightly bit later.”
Ali Abdelaziz eventually got to Dillon Danis years after UFC 229 brawl
Though he can have been prevented from getting his hands on Danis at UFC 229, Abdelaziz appeared to finally reach McGregor’s controversial teammate three years later.
While in attendance at UFC 268 for Usman’s championship principal event against Colby Covington, Abdelaziz was accused of slapping Danis backstage.
“Ali Abdelaziz slapped Dillon Danis backstage tonight at #UFC268 in keeping with multiple individuals who witnessed the incident,” reporter John Morgan revealed on X. “Danis was then apparently faraway from the constructing.
“Reached out to @AliAbdelaziz00, but he declined to comment.”
Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping later corroborated that in a now-deleted tweet, also claiming that Danis had been banned from all future events.