ATT co-founder Ricardo Liborio recently announced that he was no longer with the team. His remarks came along with criticism of ATT fighter Colby Covington’s ugly outburst in Brazil at UFC Fight Night 119 on Saturday. However, while the announcement of the split was presumably tied to Covington’s remarks, the departure had happened years before.
[Liborio] left two years ago, said fellow ATT co-founder Dan Lambert to John Morgan for MMAjunkie. He moved to Orlando, three hours north of here, for family issues. I made a deal with him, I said, ‘OK, I’ll keep you on the payroll. Just come down a couple days a week and train guys.’ He never came down. He got too busy up there, so I kept him on the payroll for over a year to help him out, and then earlier this year we ended it because he just hadn’t been down. But that was months and months and months ago.
The family issues referenced by Lambert are medical complications around the blindness suffered by Liborio’s wonderful daughter Bella. Lambert also said while he doesn’t fully embrace Liborio’s condemnation of Covington’s remarks, he gets it.
I wasn’t put off by him condemning what Colby said, Lambert said. That’s a normal reaction for somebody to have, especially for somebody from the country. Everybody is entitled to their opinion on that.
“I think I’m kind of in the middle. There’s people on the one extreme end who want him killed or fired or dragged through the streets of Rio de Janeiro and declared a racist, and then you’ve got people on the other end who think it’s hilarious and think it’s true. I’m kind of in the middle. I think it’s just a young kid trying to get his name out there and stirring the pot and playing on people’s emotions to get his name in the news.
They’re words. Do I agree with his words? I’m never going to come out and say I agree with his words. Come on. But at the end of the day, they’re just words from some kid who’s trying to get his name out there and trying to draw some attention to himself. It is what it is. I don’t like football players kneeling on Sundays when the national anthem plays, especially on 9/11 or Veterans Day, but you know what? I’m not going to call for them to be fired or killed or anything of the like. It’s their right to say what they want to say.
