Popular Twitch streamers Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins and Nick ‘NICKMERCS’ Kolcheff have a longer history than some fans may know, recalling the time that they almost physically fought over a Halo gamebattles match.
Both Ninja and NICKMERCS were formerly competitive players in Halo and Gears of War respectively, and so their “friendship” dates back over a decade.
During a live stream on December 22, NICKMERCS reminisced on just how long he had known Ninja, well before the streaming days, and how their first encounter was not a friendly one.
NICKMERCS and his team were up against Ninja and his in an online GameBattles match of Halo, which Ninja’s team won handedly – prompting some trash talk in the lobby.
“[Ninja]’s really good at talking shit,” NICKMERCS explained, “he’ll full send it on you, he’ll get right under your skin real quick. Now he doesn’t do this anymore, but if you guys watched him in the past, this guy, man he was good. He just gets right under there and pisses me off.”
Never one to backdown, Kolcheff recalls that he was so mad, screaming down the microphone saying “bro, you cannot talk to me like that. You’re going to the event that we’re all going to in a month, and I’m telling you, shut your fucking mouth, or that’s it. He would not stop talking.”
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Later in the same stream, NICKMERCS and Ninja were playing Fortnite together, and Ninja remembered the whole situation, and even attending the event.
Doing his best NICKMERCS impression, Ninja recalled how he and his squad almost got into a brawl – all over the GameBattles match.
“[NICK] walks up to our entire squad as we’re walking into the venue, and kind of pushes us like ‘You wanna go?’ We were like ‘Bro, chill, it’s GameBattles'”, Ninja said, before impersonating Nick again: “You can’t talk trash online and not back it up baby!”
Whatever their past grievances, the pair have since reconciled, and NICKMERCS says they have always been friends and respected each other from afar, congratulatory on Ninja’s success.
Ninja has seriously toned down the aggression and language used on his channel, since his rise to becoming the most popular streamer on Twitch in 2018, aware of his younger audience demographic.
However, old clips of his trash talking abilities still circle online, with some brutal roasts coming from the now most popular gamer in the world.