Dirtbag Dan Says Math Hoffa "Got It A Lot More Fair Than He's Served It In The Past"

Reacting to Dizaster punching Math Hoffa in their battle over the weekend, Dirtbag Dan explained what he saw and the potential aftermath in an exclusive interview with Battle Rap.

“That shit was pretty entertaining to watch, the video of it,” he said. “He got him as hard as [Math Hoffa] got Serius [Jones] and Dose combined. Pretty amazing to watch.”

Detailing the lead-up to the final round in which the punch occurred, Dirtbag Dan admitted that “Diz kind of started slipping up.”

“I feel like Diz made it all the way through the battle,” he said. “Math would have made it all the way on the plane and went home and it would have been cool. Math was being cool the whole time. Diz, a lot of people thought he premeditated it, I don’t think so. But I think he had definitely made the decision in his head, ‘If it comes down to it, I’m down to punch this dude. We can go to blows.’ That’s the hardest thing about fighting somebody is actually making that decision like, ‘Okay, it can happen.’ Once you do that, it’s gonna happen at some point. They were just squared off and I think Diz—whatever kind of energy Math was giving off put [Diz] in fight mode. And you can tell ‘cause the first two rounds were so clean. They were both killing it. I hand it to Diz ‘cause Diz is the homie and I know I’m bias so I don’t really like put my opinion out there like that. Third round Diz kind of started slipping up. I could tell why as he was posturing. He was thinking, ‘Oh, I’m gonna have to fight this dude.’ Something about what was happening in that third round. Either what Math said in his round or how Math was looking at him while Diz was rapping. Or, whatever. That energy was kind of building up.”

Sharing his perspective of the fight itself, Dan said that it was mostly one-on-one "in a room full of hundreds of people."

“I think a lot of people were like, ‘Math is getting stomped out right now,’” he said. “Not really. There was definitely more people involved than just Dizaster and Math. But, they definitely let Math get up, you know what I mean? And then Math came at Diz again and they went at it again and then they let him get up again. I’ll tell you what, as many people were in there, if they didn’t want Math to get out of there, if they wanted to seriously do harm to Math, it would of happened. There wasn’t enough security, there wasn’t enough of the homies, there wasn’t anybody [that] could stop it from happening, if they wanted it to happen...I think it was more a Math and Diz thing. Everybody was kind of caught up in the melee. People were picking up tables and shit but no one was hitting anyone with a table you know what I mean?

“I hate to think that people are gonna make it into like a [West Coast] versus the East Coast guys thing," he added. "‘Cause that’s really not how it was. Two dudes were fighting in a room full of hundreds of people. Some shoes are gonna get stopped. Some people are gonna get knocked on the ground and it’s gonna look a lot more wild than it looks. At the end of the day, that was Diz and Math.”

On the grounds that Math Hoffa may have deserved the punch given his own history of hitting Serious Jones and Dose in the ring, Dan said "it was unnecessary."

“Like I said, you punch the puncher and a lot of people are gonna be applauding you," he said. "It was unnecessary. He won the battle I thought. Did he deserve this? I don’t know, no I guess. But if you’re the puncher in every other situation in your life. I’ll tell you what, Serious Jones didn’t get a, ‘I should punch you in fucking face right now’ and then plant [his] feet. Serious Jones had his head down...He got it a lot more fair than he’s served it in the past I think. Still ain’t cool. If anyone’s gonna get punched, right?”

Dirtbag Dan Says Battles Need Security

Alongside his reaction to the incident itself, Dirtbag Dan went on to predict that without security, similar breakdowns might occur.

“Lesson to be learned from this is: we’re gonna punch each other sometimes,” he said. “It’s not cool. It shouldn’t be condoned. Put big people in the ring so that we can’t punch each other. Straight up. Have Trick Trick stand there and just look at us. He says I can’t punch anybody then no one’s punching anybody. It’s a no-punch zone. Until they have some kind of people saying, ‘There’s gonna be immediate consequences, not like, I’ll take your money or I won’t let you battle later. You’re gonna have a problem right now if you swing on this dude.’ It’s gonna happen in the future. I just don’t think it’s ‘bad for the culture.’”

Adding that “a lot more people saw a little piece of Battle Rap yesterday than have in a long time,” Dan also wondered about the after-effects himself.

“It definitely did more for the culture view-wise than Total Slaughter or the Ab-Soul thing,” he said. “I know the Worldstar numbers aren’t always a hundred percent accurate, but it’s probably like 2 million views on Worldstar now. That’s fucking crazy...Battles don’t do that. Well, we’ll see how good it is for the culture. We ain't going back to the club again I’ll tell you that much.”