Nick the Tooth Explains why He Left Lookin’ for a Fight

Lookin’ for a Fight, which follows UFC President Dana White, former UFC welterweight champ Matt Serra, and MMA personality Nick “The Tooth” Gullo around the continent as they track down rising MMA talent, has become incredibly popular over the last year. Unfortunately, the show has recently taken a bit of a hit, as The Tooth has had a rather public falling out with White and Serra.

Until now, the perception has been that The Tooth was upset about being dominated by Serra in a grappling match while filming in Alaska – which, of course, makes him look like a bit of a poor sport. On the latest episode of Bruce Buffer’s podcast, however, The Tooth gave his side of the story, and things are not quite as we’ve been led to believe.

The issue, The Tooth explained, actually did come down to the aforementioned grappling session. The problem for him, though, was not that he lost.

“He and I rolled and he smoked me, like he did before when we rolled earlier, and he claimed that I was really upset and pissed off because it showed me getting beaten,” he told Buffer and co-host TJ De Santis. “I could give a shit who beats me. I don’t care. Did anybody not see me go with Joe Lauzon? That was by far, hands down, probably one of the most famous jiu jitsu matches as far as the amount of people that watched it, ever. And I got smoked and tooled up by Joe Lauzon—which, mind you, to me, was a complete honor.”

The Tooth then went on to explain the actual problem he had with grappling session in question.

“When he and I were going roll, I was told we were just going to go in there, and he was going to do a seminar, and I was just going to do some flow rolling,” he explained. “If you go back and watch the video, the first thing I say, and they actually kept it in there, was me going ‘dude, I’m not even warmed up yet’.”

“I was wearing the rash guard, and that was the first thing I said to Matt, from my school, from the Art of Jiu Jitsu,” The Tooth continued. “Now, you have to understand that in jiu jitsu culture and also in MMA culture, camps and teams are a big f***ing deal. I didn’t start it, I didn’t make it up, and my biggest concern was the people were gonna see me in the art of jiu jitsu rash guard, and they were going to take that video, and they were going to cut it up, and it was going to go around the web with click-bait headlines saying ‘look, Serra jiu jitsu is better than the Mendez jiu jitsu.’ And guess what, it happened. You can go online and search it.”

“Now, you have to keep in my mind, that’s not my school, that’s my professor’s school.” The Tooth added. “These guys have worked for the past four years. They get to the gym every morning at eight in the morning, and they’re there until nine at night doing everything they can do to build that brand. And in on fell swoop, Art of Jiu Jitsu is seen more around the world, from me getting smoked by Matt than anything else. If they had told me ‘you’re going against Matt and you guys are having a hard match, and it’s going to be crazy,’ I would have been stoked, and I would have taken off the frickin’ rash guard and put on a t-shirt.”

This incident, The Tooth explained, when combined with several similar brushes with the show’s team, were enough to make him put his foot down and leave the show.

What do you think of Nick the Tooth’s side of the story? Sound off, PENN nation!