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Jon Jones has a new best friend with a super speedy scooter.
Perhaps that’s why the UFC heavyweight champion failed to intervene when Zalimkhan Yusupov went off the rails and swung on Nate Diaz, who recently joined “Bones” as head coach for the Russian knockoff of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF).
“Once a couple guys tried to blitz me, I’m looking around at, you know, a hundred dudes,” former UFC welterweight and Nate Diaz training partner, Jake Shields, recounted in his video. “It’s like, oh sh*t, I better deescalate this situation, not get crazy. So, at that point, we calmed down, stayed there a little bit longer but it was just chaos. There kept almost being fights, people getting smacked, it was just too much. We started bouncing, they were trying to say we couldn’t leave. We’re just like, ‘Nah, we’re f—king leaving.’”
Yusupov is the same hothead who choked out last season’s head coach, Aljamain Sterling.
“People have been sending me videos from Russian Instagram and TV and stuff,” Shields continued. “Supposedly, these Russian and Chechnyan fighters were looking for us around Thailand but the drivers drove us to our hotel, they knew exactly where we were. We were in the same area for three days, four days, going to the exact same places. Everyone knew where we were at, we were chilling right there. They were just running their mouth trying to act tough.”
Here’s more from Shields:
Whether or not Diaz returns to the show or gets replaced by a new coach remains to be seen.