Colby Covington has gleefully adopted a heel persona on a par with The Iron Sheik, endlessly uttering the UFC equivalent of “you show me the respect or beat the f*** out of you, suplex you, put u in camel clutch f*** your a**, make you humble.” It’s impossible to determine what’s kayfabe and what’s him, but ATT teammate Joanna Jedrzejczyk wants him off the team. Stipe Miocic wants a word. And ATT teammates Jorge Masvidal and Dustin Poirier have said they will jump Covington on sight.
However, during a recent appearance on Submission Radio, Covington said that after consideration, he’s still training at ATT headquarter in Coconut Creek, Florida, to prepare for his fight vs. UFC welterweight champ Kamaru Usman at UFC 245 on December 14 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
I’m back in American Top Team officially,” he said. “This is the homegrown gym that I started at. I started at American Top Team with Dan Lambert, he recruited me straight out of college wrestling. I’ve never been to another gym except for American Top Team, so this is where I started and this where I’ll finish. I can’t thank the godfather enough, Dan Lambert, for what he does for me and everything that he provides. So, my training goes according to plan so I can keep improving as a martial artist. I bleed American Top Team through and through and I’ll finish my career with them.
“It wasn’t more about training anywhere else, it was more about just staying away from the distractions, the drama that’s going on at the gym. Obviously, everybody in the gym’s jealous of me. I’ve got a lot of haters in the world, and that’s just how the world is today. Everybody’s hates on people that are doing better than them. I can’t control other people’s feelings if they’re jealous and envious of where I’m at in my career, making more money than them, doing bigger things. So, I was deciding whether or not I just take a little break and just train behind closed doors, you know, at a private gym, just a no-name type gym and just go to American Top Team for sparring or what I was gonna do. But ultimately, Dan Lambert sat everybody down and made sure we’re on the same page and just made sure that nothing’s gonna go down on our gym floors. That’s a sacred ground at American Top Team and you don’t cross those rules that Dan Lambert set forth or there will be repercussions.
Man, I love it, man – now when I walk in the gym, everybody knows what’s going down … I’ve said this since the beginning – I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to make money. So, all these people know that it’s about money for me now, it’s not about the friendships. I’m here to train, put my time in, and get out. That’s what it is. All these guys are too busy being friends with each other and which social media they’re gonna put and how they’re gonna pose on social media. I’m here to win, win fights and kick ass and get the biggest checks in the sport today. I’m not settling for anything less. And I could care less about anybody else’s feelings.
Colby piped up about Dustin Poirier.
“I haven’t seen him,” said Covington. “That was fake news, just like a lot of the other stuff he says. But he knows where I’m at, I’m at American Top Team if he wants to talk it out like men. He needs to stop getting his feelings hurt. He got his feelings hurt over an opinion I had. Which, that opinion by the way, was a truthful opinion. So, if you’re mad about the truth, I don’t know what to say about you anymore. If you want to be a delusional type of person, then that’s your choice. But Dan Lambert does a good job at being the mediator and making sure things are smoothed over. But I mean, I recommend that if he wants his health to be at full health, I recommend him not coming within five feet of me.
Colby also responded to Jorge Masvidal saying Covington has shorted one of his trainers.
No, there’s no truth to that,” said Covington. “Jorge is drawing at straws right now. He has nothing else to say about me because he knows he can’t attack my fighting skills because he knows my fighting skills speak for themselves. And to be honest, he’s never won one second of any type of rounds we’ve ever trained together. And he knows that deep down inside. So he’s just looking for something to promote a future fight. We may have to fight each other. Former best friends turned foes. And that’s how this sport is – there’s no friends in this type of sport. It’s an individual sport and it’s business, so we had to part our friendship.
“And he’s making up lies, man, he’s trying to say that I owe his coach money. And I can show you the receipts. I’ll go get the receipts right now and show you. I overpaid him if anything. The only percentage that I owe is to American Top Team. I pay them five percent every fight, and that’s the only people I have to pay. I have no obligation to pay any other coaches. All the other coaches that I pay is on me if I want to pay them or not, and I always paid his coach, man. I gave him five to ten grand per fight, and I have the receipts too. So, you know, he’s lying, man. He needs to stop with that fake news narrative.
If he wins his fight in November and when I beat Marty Fakenewsman in December, then we’ll see each other in the octagon and that’ll be that.
It’s just business at the end of the day. I’m not looking to be his friend or really anybody’s friend. I have my friends, you know, Tony Murphy, Steve Mocco, Conan Silveira, my head coach. A lot of great people, Dan Lambert. I don’t want any more friends. With him, we’re gonna have to fight each other, we’re gonna have to see each other in the Octagon and we can settle out differences then. All the pent up aggression, the anger that he has towards me, he has a chance to settle it. When those cage doors lock in the UFC Octagon and Bruce Bufffer announces “IT’S TIME that will be the time he can let all those frustrations out, and then hopefully we can go back to being civil with each other. Because right now we’re just wasting energy. He’s doing stupid things, he’s trying to act tough. You know, we’re professional cage fighters. We get paid to fight in the cage, we don’t get paid to fight outside of it. So I would hate to have to hurt him outside the cage so he doesn’t get to the Nate Diaz fight.
“I found out his true colors – he wasn’t a real friend the whole time, he was just using me to help him with his wrestling. And that’s good because I used him to get striking. So, we used each other. And it wasn’t really a friendship, it was more of a business relationship, and it worked for the time being and that’s that. I remember six years ago when we were living together in an apartment, we talked about making it to this level and who was gonna be the first fighter to make a million dollars in a fight. And we were in competition with each other, we were pushing each other in the gym. We’d yell in the gym, ‘hey, who’s gonna be the first fighter to get a million-dollar fight?’ We were competing to push each other to these great limits, and here we are now, and now we have to act like kids? I mean, I’m not acting like a kid, he’s acting like a kid. But here we are, and you can’t be professional and understand this game? It’s business and we’re not gonna be friends, we’re gonna have to fight each other. But it is what it is, man. Just grow up and lets’ not play these childish games where you’re making up lies and you’re saying stupid stuff that isn’t true, let’s just be honest and call things the way they are, call a spade a spade. But apparently that’s hard for him. He’s a Miami little street thug.
And Covington didn’t hold back on Usman, either.
“He’s just another fight,” said Covington. “I would say that Marty Fakenewsman, the only thing he’s losing faster than that receding hairline is that number-one contender Power Ranger belt. So, he needs to let go of that fake belt. December, I’m taking it off of him and I’m unifying this belt. This is the most coveted title in all of sports, by the way. This is America’s belt. This is the people’s belt. This is Donald Trump’s favorite fighter’s belt. Marty Fakenewsman sucks at fighting. I’m gonna expose him on December 14th, and mark my words, you guys heard it here first.
“He’s not making it to the championship rounds. I can promise you that. He’s never been in there with someone he couldn’t take down. Every single fight that he’s fought he’s had to take the guy down, implement his strategy that way, wear on the guys with his big body on top of guys. He’s not taking me down. He’s got D-2-level scrub wrestling. I’m a D-1 stud. He’s never felt an all-star like me before. And if he’s shooting reckless, he’s gonna get knocked out. If he tries to wrestle with me, he’s gonna gas out. His striking is amateur at best. I mean, he has so many holes in his game. I’ve been able to break down so many holes and the patterns that he has in his striking game. He’s not on my level, and I’ve been saying this for a long time, that I’m the most well-rounded fighter that the UFC’s ever seen, and you’re gonna find that out on December 14th. I can wrestle him, I can take him down and beat him up, submit him on the ground or I can knock him out on the feet. It’s gonna be his choice.
“There’s a reason I’m the main event, and it has nothing to do with Marty Fakenewsman, it’s all on me and what I bring to the table. I’m a marketing genius, I’m a promotional horse. I put this whole event on my back, I put every event on my back, and people want to tune in to see me. Whether it’s to win or lose, they’re tuning in to see me. And hate and love, it’s all the same thing when they go to turn on the TV. … what’s great about this is, this is an opportunity for me to just really shove this up the UFC’s a** and say, f*** you guys, I don’t give a f*** about you guys, now you have to come to me. So, you’re gonna be calling me after December 14th begging to get me back in there. And if you don’t come right next time, you know, I don’t need to fight again, man. I already have enough money in my bank account where I don’t have to ever fight or do anything ever again. I’m making multi six-figure sponsors from Bang Energy, from a CBD company, from a betting website. So, I’m making more money in sponsors than Marty Fakenewsman’s gonna make in this fight.
I got a lot of people in my corner. A lot of people on team MAGA. We’re gonna be dropping MAGA bombs December 14th. It’s the Trump train and the Colby train continues. Choo choo. And just like I told you guys after Newark, get off the tracks or you’re gonna get ran over. Marty should have learned the lesson. He should have just waved, stayed off the tracks and waved while it goes by. But he wanted to stay on the tracks, so now he’s gonna get ran the f*** over.
