Friday afternoon at the UFC Summer Kickoff press conference, fans and media members were treated to a rather thrilling press conference that featured not only a pre-conference incident with Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier, but also a mid-conference brawl between Kevin Lee and Michael Chiesa.
Jones and Cormier’s incident occurred backstage before the event, and revolved around Jones allegedly saying something about Cormier’s kids. This prompted Cormier to stomp over to Jones and throw a water bottle at him before security guards jumped in and restrained Cormier.
The second incident took place during the press conference, when UFC lightweight Kevin Lee questioned whether or not Michael Chiesa would show up to the fight depending on if his mother had a ticket or not. Chiesa quickly became enraged over Lee mentioning his mother, and quickly charged at the UFC lightweight. While security was quick to restrain Chiesa, Lee managed to run up to a restrained Chiesa and punch him before security guards were able to separate the men.
At the conclusion of the press conference, the UFC held staredowns for all of the fights on the card, which you can see above!
The first matchup mentioned above comes in the lightweight division, where Michael Johnson will look to bounce back from his recent loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov, while Gaethje will look to get his first UFC win.
In the next matchup, Amanda Nunes will look to make her second successful title defense as she steps into the Octagon for a highly anticipated rematch against Valentina Shevchenko.
Next up we have Joanne Calderwood vs. Cynthia Calvillo, where Calderwood will look to return to the win column by defeating the undefeated Cynthia Calvillo.
Next is a pivotal middleweight matchup between former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman and streaking middleweight Kelvin Gastelum. Weidman will look to snap a losing streak and bounce back from a controversial loss to Gegard Mousasi, while Gastelum will look to pick up another win at middleweight.
Next up is the official announcement for Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier, which currently has yet to be confirmed for the main event or the co-main event.
The last fight which was announced, and nearly took place early, was a lightweight showdown between Kevin Lee and Michael Chiesa, which resulted in both men leaving early after a near brawl.
UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones and his legal team have reached a resolution in his assault case in Albuquerque involving two Drug-Free Sport testers at his home.
