Eric Nicksick says his brief post-fight dispute with Ali Abdelaziz following UFC Vegas 119 was minor and quickly resolved, downplaying social media chatter about an alleged altercation.
The situation surfaced after Manel Kape scored a stoppage win over Kyoji Horiguchi at the event, with reports circulating online that Nicksick and Abdelaziz clashed backstage. Nicksick, who coaches both Kape and Sean Strickland, said the issue has already been handled.
“Honestly, like we’re brothers, man,” Nicksick said. “We’ve known each other for a long time. We’ve had arguments before in the past. It’s just unfortunate. He was upset about some things that really I had nothing to do with, so I was defensive and he was defensive, I didn’t even think anything of it, bro. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“I know that, because of the setting, it got blown up more than it needed to be. But all in all, dude, we’re fine. It’s not a big deal. We smoothed it out real quick. Yeah, that was that,” he added, later noting, “We went to dinner. Everything’s fine.”
Nicksick also linked recent social media tension between Kape and Strickland to the Abdelaziz situation and took responsibility for keeping his fighters aligned. “I need to make sure that like… we’re all under the same roof. I coach both of those guys. If there’s an issue between those guys, then I need to step in and help mediate that stuff. But that all stems from some of that Ali stuff that really… when I look at a situation like that, I got to point the blame to myself and make sure that like all these guys are on the same page under the same roof, right?”
