Winnipeg, MB — Gauge Young made himself public enemy number one in Winnipeg this past week, but it mattered not when his fight with Thiago Moises played out.
Sure, there were plenty of jeers for the American, who called the Manitoba city “a dump” ahead of UFC Winnipeg on Saturday. Still, Young battled it out to earn a hard-fought split decision at the event, the first UFC card in Winnipeg in nine years.
Moises has shared the cage with the likes of Islam Makhachev, Beneil Dariush, and Benoit Saint-Denis, some of the best lightweights in the world during his eight year run. Which makes it all the more meaningful for Young to come away with the victory.
“It’s just a nod to all the hard work I’ve done. It fires me up. I’ve got some wind behind my sails now, that’s two in a row,” Young (11-3) told Cageside Press backstage at the Canada Life Centre on Saturday. “I’ll be going in there looking for a finish next time.” Young admitted that he was disappointed he couldn’t finish Moises on Saturday, though clearly it was not for lack of effort.
“It is what it is, I’m not going to harp on it too much, but I’m really hunting that finish.”
Of course, there was that tweet to talk about. The “dump” tweet. Was it just a heel persona? Was Gauge Young going the Colby Covington route?
“Not even man. Really you know what it was, I was walking around Tuesday trying to get a pedicure around this mother, dude we must have pulled up to six, seven shops and every shop I went into they were just rude and mean and turned us all down, and just was acting like we weren’t even worth the salt we was walking on,” explained Young. “And then I’m like ‘man, f*ck this place.’ So I went to Twitter and I tweeted, I’m like, I don’t f*ck with Colby but I’m like ‘not to be on some Colby Covington sh*t, but Winnipeg is a dump.'”
“You know a lot of the Canadians agree with me. I don’t think I’m saying anything that these guys don’t already think themselves. Once it snowed, honestly we got here when the snow was gone, and the last couple days the snow was gone. And the last couple days the snow was coming down and once everything was covered up and it was white, it wasn’t so bad. Shout out to Canada, I would love to come back and check out something else, but as far as I’m concerned it’s ‘f*ck Winnipeg.'”
Young might be having a bit of a laugh with it all. And he did a little showboating in the fight itself, though he explained his antics were more about getting over with the judges.
“At this level anything that looks good to the judges is gonna look good on the scorecard. We call that optics. I think that’s just a testament to my maturity in the game. If I can win the optics and make it look good and make it look like I’m dominating, that’s gonna sway people’s opinion and hopefully sway the judges’ decision as well.”
Young was hit with a 30 day suspension after the fight, and will take some time with his family. As for an opponent for his next outing, “Nikolas Motta would be a really good match-up for me. I just took one Brazilian out, let’s line up another one. Nikolas Motta would be a good match-up for me.”
Watch the full UFC Winnipeg post-fight press conference with Gauge Young above.
