Mandel Nallo Says His Sons Asked for the Weigh-In Nose Pick

Mandel Nallo has explained the moment at the UFC Edmonton weigh-ins when he picked his nose on stage and then had to deal with Dana White reaching out for a handshake immediately afterward. The fighter told the story in a post by Ariel Helwani on October 21, walking through both the request from his sons and the awkward dilemma that followed.

The gesture, Nallo said, was a message to his two sons, who are 5 and 7. "I wanted to notify them that I knew they were watching," he explained, so he put the question to the boys directly: "What's something I can do so that you guys can see that I know you're watching?"

Their answer was simple. "They told me, 'Pick your nose,'" Nallo recalled.

He did not do it halfway. "I'm a committed nose picker. I'm not gonna half-ass it. I'm not gonna pretend," he said. "So I went up there and that was for them."

The complication arrived the moment he finished. Nallo is right-handed and had used that hand. "I'm gonna go up there with my right hand, and then [Dana White] extends his arm out to you. You don't have time to explain what just happened," he said. Instead of taking the hand, he pointed a finger at White: "So I did a finger point so that there was no contact."

He insists there was nothing behind it. "There was no disrespect," he said, describing the scene as "kind of like a Curb Your Enthusiasm moment." Refusing the handshake outright was not an option either: "I got this booger in my hand, but if I go, 'I don't wanna shake your hand,' then I look even worse. I just had to roll with it."

Source: Ariel Helwani on X