Colby Covington has refuted Jorge
Masvidal’s claims that he has ripped off one of the American Top Team coaches
and attributes the accusation to a case of desperate self-promotion.
Colby “Chaos” Covington has never been one to mince words when speaking about any subject or any individual, and that includes former friend and current American Top Team teammate Jorge Masvidal. Jorge Masvidal has adopted these same characteristics recently, alleging that Colby Covington became dead to him after his treatment of an unnamed ATT coach. In a recent interview with Submission Radio, Colby Covington responded to Masvidal’s comments in typical Colby Covington fashion (Transcript via MMA Fighting):
“No, there’s no truth to that.
Jorge is drawing at straws right now,” Covington said. “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.”
Last week, ATT coach Mike Brown said that Colby Covington vs. Jorge Masvidal is a fight that could happen. From where Covington stands, Mike Brown undersold the hypothetical fight, as the former interim welterweight champion believes that the fight must happen:
“We may have to fight each other,” Covington said. “Former best friends turned foes. And that’s how this sport is. There’s no sports, 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.”
Returning to the matter of Colby Covington’s
integrity as an ATT athlete, Covington claims to have proof that he has never
done what Masvidal has accused him of:
“And he’s making up lies, man,” Covington said. “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,” Covington continued. “I gave him five to ten grand per fight, and I have the receipts too. So, you know, he’s lying, man. He has nothing else to say.”
Colby Covington believes that his former friend is behaving immaturely and is unable to grasp or accept the fact that they are in a business. Covington states that Masvidal did have an understanding of this once, but believes that Masvidal’s street roots ultimately got in the way:
“We were pushing each other in the
gym,” Covington said. “We’d yell in the gym, ‘Hey, who’s gonna be the first
fighter to get a million-dollar fight,’ this and that. 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?
“Yeah, 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 let’s 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.”
What do you make of Colby
Covington’s response to Jorge Masvidal?