White: Iaquinta will be considered UFC champ with win over Khabib
Al Iaquinta may leave Brooklyn as a UFC champion with a win after all.
Despite weighing in above the lightweight championship limit by 0.2 pounds, Iaquinta will be considered 155-pound champion with a win over Khabib Nurmagomedov in the newly booked main event of Saturday's UFC 223, president Dana White announced at the promotion's 25th anniversary presser.
The New York State Athletic Commission likely wouldn't recognize Iaquinta as the champion if he wins, but White revealed the fighter's underwear accounted for the excess poundage and maintained the technicalities would be smoothed over after fight night.
Iaquinta was booked to face Nurmagomedov after featherweight champion Max Holloway was ruled unfit to tip the scales during Friday morning's weigh-ins. Both Anthony Pettis and Paul Felder - Iaquinta's original opponent - were considered as late fill-ins before the Long Islander stepped up, by which time the weigh-ins had concluded. Iaquinta was initially deemed ineligible to win the crown after weighing in at 155.2 pounds.
The pair of lightweights meet in Saturday's headliner at Brooklyn's Barclays Center.