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White Sox Dave Is Team Jamahal Hill From Day One | UFC FIGHT PASS
A Pandemic Impulse Purchase Turned Bartstool Chicago’s White Sox Dave Into A Ground Floor Fan Of Jamahal Hill
It’s a strange, strange world we live in when UFC fans have to acknowledge that “White Sox Dave” Williams was on the Jamahal Hill train long before most of the fanbase.
When the pandemic of 2020 put a halt to a lot of the content-making venues the Barstool Sports personalities are used to having at their disposal, upper management didn’t lay anybody off or accept the damage; they put a fire under the company and let the cream rise to the top.
How To Watch UFC 283: Teixeira vs Hill In Your Country
Known content ace “White Sox Dave” Williams not only found content avenues outside of his comfort zone but made a friend in the fight game in the process.
Jamahal Hill Fight Week Interview | UFC 283
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Jamahal Hill Fight Week Interview | UFC 283
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“Long story short, I bought a PlayStation because that was very easy to do from my living room,” Williams explained. “I was working a lot with the Barstool Gametime video game brand, playing a lot of Call of Duty. We did a UFC week where Megan Anderson, Jamahal, I remember we did something with the Entourage cast so they might have been involved; long story short, I was playing Call of Duty with Jamahal, and this was before I started really watching UFC, so I looked him up and I was like, ‘Oh sweet, he’s 6-0, looks like he’s pretty decent.’”
Jumping on the Jamahal Hill train fresh off of his Dana White’s Contender Series win, Williams would be aboard for essentially Hill’s entire UFC run, keeping in touch with “Sweet Dreams” along the way. It wasn’t long before Williams realized that Hill wasn’t “just another fighter.” He had befriended a genuine contender in the light heavyweight division.
“He and I stayed in touch after that one-day tournament,” Williams said. “We kept playing Call of Duty together and it got to the point where I started to follow his journey up to the UFC and I was like, ‘Holy s***, this guy’s really good!’”
Being dialed in early gave Williams the pleasure of watching Hill climb higher and higher, beating bigger and bigger names. The names of the opponents have continued getting more and more intimidating, but it’s been more of the same from Hill. Get a finish, get the hand raised, rinse, repeat.
Main Event Preview | UFC 283: Teixeira vs Hill
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Main Event Preview | UFC 283: Teixeira vs Hill
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Hill hasn’t done a lot of losing since making his debut, with only one loss to his name. Unfortunately for Williams, a superstitious man may blame him for the lone blemish on Hill’s 11-1, 1 NC record.
“I was eventually the mush because every time I would play Call of Duty with him I would bring up that he was undefeated because I’d introduce my real life friends to him and the one time he got his arm snapped I was like, ‘Yeah, this is my buddy, he’s undefeated,’ like, three days before that happened.”
Fortunately for Hill the “White Sox Dave curse” may have just been a case of Paul Craig being Paul Craig. Hill healed up and hit the ground running with KO wins over rising stars Jimmy Crute and Johnny Walker before putting himself to the biggest test of his career when he took on former title challenger Thiago Santos in his second consecutive main event.
Hill would not only get the win but also his third straight performance bonus. Buzz was beginning to build around him. “Sweet Dreams” appeared to be a win or two away from a title until a main event draw between Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev left a title vacant and the fight world disappointed at UFC 282.
Casual fans feel no shame in being surprised to hear that Hill got the title shot. Even (almost) day one fans didn’t see the opportunity coming so soon.
“I did not think it was going to happen this quick,” Williams said. “Obviously, I would assume he would have even thought there was work to do and fights to win.”
Williams’ connections to the Chicago White Sox have offered him little in terms of relationships with title challengers. He’s close to Aljamain Sterling but jumped on the bandwagon when “The Funkmaster” was already a title contender. Hill signifies the first time he’s gone from the bottom to the top with an athlete, and while he refuses to claim he has more of a right to celebrate than others, he’s willing to go to lengths others may not to see the fight.
Regardless of the time or the place Williams has to watch, he’s planning to go to whatever extreme to make it happen. There’s nothing Williams won’t do to see this fight; the only thing he won’t do is learn anything about Hill’s opponent, former champion, Glover Teixeira.
“I don’t know a single thing about the dude he’s fighting… Jamahal is going to whoop his ass,” Williams said. “It’s going to be a stoppage; I’ll say early in the third round.”
Win, lose or draw it’s still Team Hill for Williams. There may even be a day we see video content of Williams getting very hands-on instructions from Hill, but it’ll all come on the other side of the biggest fight of Hill’s career at UFC 283, a fight “White Sox Dave” Williams wouldn’t miss for the world.
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UFC 283: Teixeira vs Hill took place live from Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on January 21, 2023. See the Final Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!
