A few episodes into Dana White: Lookin’ for a Fight, Nick ‘the Tooth’ disappeared.
Without any explanation, Nick was replaced by former UFC fighter Din Thomas and they haven’t mentioned him in any of the follow-up episodes.
Last week, star of the show and former UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra gave his side of the story, explaining Nick’s removal from the triumvirate stemmed from a jiu-jitsu challenge on the show, which resulted in “the Terra” tapping out Nick.
Speaking on Bruce Buffer’s “It’s Time” podcast, Nick confirmed that this was the challenge was the beginning of the end for his time on the reality series.
“When we filmed that right there, when he and I were gonna roll, I was told that we were just gonna go in there and he was gonna give a seminar, and then we were just gonna do some flow rolling or whatever it is. And if you go back, and you watch the video, the first thing I said (and they actually kept it in there) was me going ‘dude, I’m not even warmed up yet.”
Matt Serra reveals why Nick the Tooth was kicked off Dana White: Lookin' for a Fight https://t.co/acmlj7Keq8
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) September 10, 2016
Nick shed more light on his withdrawal, explaining that he was unhappy with being left in the dark about the details of the challenge. Also, there was the small matter of the rash guard he was wearing… of course.
“But the real reason I was upset was because one, I wasn’t told what was gonna happen and everybody else knew it was gonna happen. And I’m not cool with that, and I wasn’t cool with that. And number two, I was wearing the rash guard, and that was the first thing I said to Matt, from my school, the Art of Jiu-Jitsu.”
“Now, you have to understand that in Jiu-Jitsu culture and also in MMA culture, camps and teams are a big fucking deal. I didn’t start it, I didn’t make it up, and my biggest concern was that people were gonna see me in an Art of Jiu-Jitsu rash guard, and they were gonna take that video, and they were gonna cut it up, and it was gonna go around the web with clickbaits saying ‘Look! Serra Jiu-Jitsu is better than the Mendes Jiu-Jitsu.’ And guess what, it happened. You can go online and search it.”
He added that Serra forcing the tap from him in a rolling session being witnessed by such a huge online audience reflected poorly on his coaches and he felt it may have hurt their brand which they spent so long building up.
“You have to keep in mind, that’s not my school. That is my professors’ school, Rafa and Guilherme Mendes. These guys have worked for the past four years. They get to the gym every morning at eight, and they’re there until nine at night, doing everything they can do to build that brand. And in one fell swoop, Art of Jiu-Jitsu is seen more around the world for me getting smoked by Matt, than anything else.”
“If they would’ve told me ‘hey, you’re going against Matt, and you guys are gonna have a hard match and it’s gonna be crazy,’ I would’ve been stoked and I’d had taken off the freakin’ rash guard and put on a t-shirt or whatever it was, and I would’ve rolled like that.”
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