The infamous UFC 229 brawl between the teams of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor might have had 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 safe to say, however, that the Las Vegas event is not best remembered for how ‘The Eagle’ had his hand raised.
Soon after forcing the Irishman to tap out in round four, 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 another member of Nurmagomedov’s entourage from getting involved…
Ali Abdelaziz ‘ran’ to join 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 the most infamous incident involving one of his fighters.
The Dominance MMA CEO said Nurmagomedov’s entire team knew something would happen at UFC 229 given the heated build-up and McGregor’s controversial trash talk, and so Abdelaziz came prepared.
“Every title fight, I always wear a suit. For this fight, I wore a white tee, pants, and sneakers. I knew something was going on,” Abdelaziz said. “It was the body language. We all knew.”
But the 47-year-old’s plan to get 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 happen, and I was 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, if you do anything, they will suspend you and they are going to suspend every fighter. Help me calm this thing down!’
“I just really wanted to get to one guy, and I ended up getting to him a little bit later.”
Ali Abdelaziz eventually got to Dillon Danis years after UFC 229 brawl
Though he may 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 main event against Colby Covington, Abdelaziz was accused of slapping Danis backstage.
“Ali Abdelaziz slapped Dillon Danis backstage tonight at #UFC268 according to multiple people who witnessed the incident,” reporter John Morgan revealed on X. “Danis was then apparently removed from the building.
“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.