On Jan. 11, Brett Okamoto reported Colby Covington being scheduled to fight Jorge Masvidal as the main event for the UFC 272. Okamoto also tweeted that there will be a five-round fight taking place in Las Vegas.
Jorge Masvidal and Colby Covington were friends when starting their careers in the UFC based on the fact that they were both at ATT together an MMA Gym, where they hung out with each other, trained and lived together.
Masvidal did an interview with Ariel Helwani on the YouTube channel ESPN MMA in 2019. When talking about the broken relationship with Covington, Masvidal stated to him, “You [Covington] were just using me. You know, sleeping on my couch,” and also explaining how highly he talked about him when doing interviews in the past.
During that same interview, he talked about Covington ripping off his coach at ATT, how he had considered Covington a real friend and how he sold their friendship out for pay-per-view buys.
TheMacLife posted an interview with Covington where he was asked when he last had a conversation with Masvidal. Covington explained that it was about 3 years ago and gave his perspective on their beef, “I think he [Masvidal] saw all the hype I was generating and he didn’t like that. He has a big ego and he couldn’t put his ego aside for the friendship.”
Covington also added in the same interview, “It was a slow build. The digs here and there,” going into detail on their problems and mentioning when Masvidal called him a crotch-sniffer; under-cutting him in negotiations.
TheMacLife posted Covington’s post-fight interview after the Usman-Covington rematch, where he responds to a question regarding Masvidal. Covington says that the fight with him and Masvidal would be bigger than a potential rematch between Diaz and Masvidal.
Covington also points out, “He’s been talking reckless about me in the media. He’s been saying all this ****. ‘Oh, it’s on sight.’ Okay, come back up your words.”
On MMA talk, they had a clip of Din Thomas (one of Covington’s coaches) give the MMA fans some insight on Covington, “There’s a reason why he [Covington] can fight because he works hard in the gym. He’s one of the hardest-working guys in the gym”.
This sudden switch between friends and enemies may be a surprise, but can easily be explained. Before Covington fought Demian Maia, the UFC told Covington that they won’t resign him regardless of if he wins or loses.
During a BT Sport interview, Covington spoke on that experience,”To hear someone tell me, ‘hey man, we won’t resign you’ before I fight Demian Maia … it hurt. But that’s what this business is.”
Covington also claims that the UFC wasn’t upping his contract because none of the fans cared about his persona or fighting style and added, “So I knew I had to make a change.”
After Covington defeating Demian Maia in a unanimous decision victory, he quickly made that change when he was interviewed by Daniel Cormier, an ex-UFC fighter that later became his commentator. Covington called out Tyron Woodley when he said, “Tyron Woodley, I’m coming for you. If you don’t answer the front door, I will knock it in and I’m going to take what’s mine. That Welterweight belt.”
This Octagon interview made Covington become an interesting character and drew in attention from viewers. As Covington said in the BT Sport interview, “Whether they [the fans] love you or hate you, you just don’t want them to be in the middle. You don’t want them to change the channel.”
This fight is a fight that everyone was waiting for the UFC to book. Max Holloway pulled out of a title fight versus Alexander Volkanovski. Highlights of this fight will be the build-up and the trash talk; both are trash talk and the bad blood between the two will make the press conferences a sight to see.
The majority of the MMA community would believe Covington will win the bout against Masvidal either by TKO, Technical Knockout or by Decision. Since Covington has great wrestling and good striking it’s hard for most people to see Masvidal winning the fight due to recently being KO’ed by Kamaru Usman. Even Usman himself said on a Snapchat post that he has Covington winning over Masvidal.
