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Matt Serra reveals why Nick the Tooth was let go from Looking for a Fight
- Updated: September 10, 2016
If you, like many others, are wondering what happened to Nick the Tooth on the UFC popular internet show, Dana White’s Looking for a Fight, former welterweight champion, Matt Serra has the answer. In a recent interview with Bruce Buffer on his It’s Time podcast, Matt revealed the details behind Nick’s involuntary separation from the show, and it’s just as weird as you may have anticipated.
I’ve transcribed the entire segment for our readers that prefer not to listen to the audio.
Matt Serra: Let’s make some headlines, because people have been asking me, ‘What happened to Nick the Tooth? Why isn’t he on the show anymore?’ I don’t know if you want to go down that path, but I’ll talk about it, if that’s what you want to get to.
Bruce Buffer: No, you can take any path you want. Nick’s a friend of the show, too, and he’s also been on the show. Go for it, I want to hear it.
Matt Serra: You know what, it’s weird with the Tooth, man. We had such a great chemistry on the show, I know that. He’s a little bit of a wacky guy, but I think that’s what made the show very interesting. Every time I’m leaving an episode, I’m liking the guy. I’m thinking we’re getting along great and things are good.
Then, I get a follow text, just weird stuff, Bruce. In other words, it wasn’t my idea to roll with the Tooth on the show. I don’t know if you watch the show, but there’s an episode where we had a little jiu-jitsu match.
Now, let me just back it up a little bit, just so you can get an idea of my point of view with this thing. We shot the pilot, then after we did the pilot, we went back to UFC headquarters and we do a thing where you talk to the camera, you have your own camera time, where you talk about you feel about things and this and that.
We don’t see that until the pilot comes out. So, when I saw the pilot, I see a thing where Tooth is saying, ‘You know Matt, he’s short, he’s bald, he makes me look good in every way and he’s never on time. All we have to do is settle the grappling.’
That’s what he said in this thing, so I was confused. The very next time I see him, on the Alaska episode, Episode 2—they were shot out of order, because we actually did Alaska before Jersey—anyway, the next time I see him is in the hangar, and they captured that.
When we’re on the plane, I bring it up to him. I told him, ‘I’m confused. What do you mean that we have to settle the grappling? What do we have to settle?’
I’m a black belt and have been since 2000. I’m the first American black belt under Renzo Gracie…I’m not gonna start bragging about my credentials, but I love jiu-jitsu and I’ve been on the mat awhile, and I’m a jedi and whatnot. He’s a blue belt that won the old man Worlds, the 40-and-over Worlds, the Mundials.
So, he won that thing at blue belt, so I don’t know if the guy thinks I’m walking around a little chubby, that I’m on the couch, that I’m not rolling, maybe I like some pasta, so if I roll, he can get me at a moment of weakness. Where I come from, that’s a callout. I’m old school. You don’t say, ‘Hey man, let’s settle the grappling.’
You’re putting me on blast, what do you expect? So, we start breaking each other’s chops about that. I was like, ‘Dude, I fought the best on the planet,’ and he was like, ‘Yeah? Now you got …
