An otherwise tepid affair had a moment of excitement when heavyweight hurters Mark Hunt and Justin Willis, who collide at the UFC Fight Night 142 event this weekend on FOX Sports 1 in Adelaide, South Australia, got into a heated altercation backstage at the promotion’s official weigh ins.
While the scuffle took place behind the curtain, it was severe enough to see Team Australia spring into action, as Tyson Pedro and Tai Tuivasa defended their “lead horse” and almost made things even uglier for “Big Pretty.”
“It’s disrespectful,” Pedro told Submission Radio. “I don’t know if he knows he’s in Australia and that there’s no rules outside of where we are. I’ve gone back and they’re trying to stop the fight, but you can’t disrespect our lead horse. We’re not promoting fighting outside of the Octagon, but don’t go and say that to our lead horse and then come out and say something about our team. Don’t go at our team — we’re all here and we’re in Australia so it’s probably not a good idea.”
After officials were able to separate the two parties, the event continued on without incident. There will be no ceremonial weigh ins later today, so as far as today’s scale-tipping results and corresponding staredowns, what you see is what you get.
UFC Adelaide Main Card:
265 lbs.: Junior Dos Santos (255) vs. Tai Tuivasa (262)
205 lbs.: Tyson Pedro (205) vs. Mauricio Rua (206)
265 lbs.: Mark Hunt (264) vs. Justin Willis (263.5)
170 lbs.: Tony Martin (170) vs. Jake Matthews (171)
145 lbs.: Suman Mokhtarian (145) vs. Sodiq Yusuff (145)
205 lbs.: Paul Craig (206) vs. Jim Crute (205)UFC Adelaide Prelims:
170 lbs.: Alexey Kunchenko (170) vs. Yushin Okami (170)
125 lbs.: Ben Nguyen (125.5) vs. Wilson Reis (125.5)
170 lbs.: Keita Nakamura (171) vs. Salim Touahri (171)
125 lbs.: Kai Kara France (126) vs. Elias Garcia (124.5)
155 lbs.: Christos Giagos (155) vs. Mizuto Hirota (156)
155 lbs.: Alex Gorgees (156) vs. Damir Ismagulov (155)
The video highlights:
Nothing left to do now except fight.
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC Fight Night 142 fight card on fight night (click here), starting with the Fight Pass “Prelims” undercard bout at 7 p.m. ET, followed by the FOX Sports 1 “Prelims” undercard bouts at 8 p.m. ET, before the main card start time at 10 p.m. ET, also on FOX Sports 1.
For much more on UFC Adelaide click here.
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