Midnight Mania! Rockhold Rages Against Paul Criticism: ‘Shut The F—k Up!’

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Jake Paul was highly critical of the bonus-winning brawl between Luke Rockhold and Paulo Costa at UFC 278. Most viewers agreed that despite some altitude-induced fatigue, both Rockhold and Costa managed to show off their grit and skill in an entertaining scrap. Paul, meanwhile, labeled the fight “embarrassing,” and Costa has already tried to parlay that into a scrap with the YouTube star.

Rockhold, meanwhile, may not be interested in fighting Paul, but he is a bit irate at the those comments. The former Strikeforce and UFC Middleweight champion has never sent any rude remarks in Paul’s direction, and he expected the same respect.

“I thought the kid had a better head on his shoulders, and I thought he was doing better for the sport,” Rockhold said on The MMA Hour (via MMAFighting). “Like you said, it was cool — I’ve seen him stand up for respect for the sport. But then the hate kind of got to him and made him feel insecure about his hate, and so he tried to put that off on me, because of obviously my cardiovascular system in the altitude. But motherf—er, you’re doing handicapped fighting. So don’t talk. And you’re finding guys that are smaller than you, everything you’re doing. I don’t think I really opened my mouth about you — don’t open your mouth about me. You just don’t f—king understand what fighting is. When you’re thinking about fighting, you’ve got to think about dying.

“Boxing is boxing. Putting these f—king puffy little pads on your hands and all you’ve got to worry about their f—king hands. Think about elbows, think about knees, think about grappling, think about kicks, think about f—king every goddamn thing you could think about. Put you in a state of reality, which you’ve lost touch with.”

After the rant, Rockhold reiterated that he didn’t have any interest in a boxing match vs. Paul … though he would be of a consistent age for a Jake Paul opponent! He did, however, advise Paul to simmer down before he found out the hard way.

“Shut the f—k up. Go back in your f—king hole before I f—king smack the s—t out of you.”

Insomnia

A bunch of fights were announced today that aren’t quite entire article quality. Rather than link every single Tweet from Marcel Dorff (follow him already!), I’m just going to transcribe them below:

Welterweight: Kevin Holland vs. Daniel Rodriguez on 9-10
Bantamweight: Jack Shore vs. Kyler Phillips on 11-19
Bantamweight: Sergey Morozov vs. Journey Newson on 12-17
Lightweight: Magomed Mustafaev vs. Jamie Mullarkey on 10-22
Middleweight: Cody Brundage vs. Rodolfo Vieira on 11-19
Middleweight: Edmen Shahbazyan vs. Dalcha Lungiambula 12-12

Geoff Neal is still trying to line up an elite Welterweight for his next booking.

I’m trying to fight Gilbert but he’s busy chasing after Jorge, who is busy arguing with DC about a fight he know DAMN WELL he ain’t gonna get. I’m trying to get to the belt. @ColbyCovMMA what’s up? Let’s keep the welterweight division great!

— Geoff (handzofsteel) Neal (@handzofsteelmma) August 24, 2022

Don’t tell me that recently un-retired Tyson Fury, who has since retired, might come out of retirement?!?

Tyson Fury on the Oleksandr Usyk fight: “This fight is purely about money. I’m happily retired, I’ve got plenty of money. It needs to be the biggest payday in the world. Floyd Mayweather got $400million for Manny Pacquiao. I want $500million for Usyk.” [@talkSPORT]

— Michael Benson (@MichaelBensonn) August 24, 2022