UFC welterweight Santiago Ponzinibbio thinks American Top Team is better off without Colby Covington.
Ponzinibbio, who trains out of the South Florida-based gym, said Covington was creating a bad atmosphere, and his departure was for the better. Covington’s attitude and way he’s carried himself in his career rubbed many people the wrong way, creating conflict with fellow ATT fighters such as Jorge Masvidal, Dustin Poirier, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, and more.
Ponzinibbio (27-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) thinks it was the wrong move by Covington to create a riff between him and his fellow teammates and is happy he’s gone.
“He had to leave the gym for all that role he started playing and bringing in a bad vibe, so he had to leave,” Ponzinibbio said in Spanish on Monday’s episode of Hablemos MMA. “I think it was a dumb attitude from his part and, yeah, better that he left because he was bringing a bad vibe to the gym. So it’s good that he left. It’s for the better.”
The Argentine fighter had some training sessions with Covington as they were under the same roof and shared coaches. However, Ponzinibbio said there was never really a relationship, and he’d actually be more than interested in facing Covington inside the octagon.
“Friendship we never had,” Ponzinibbio explained. “I did train with him, but never friendship. I have nothing against him. He was never really my friend. We did share trainings a few times because we shared the same coach, Mike Brown. So we shared coach, and we would sometimes get together with Mikey and share a class, but nothing more than that.
“It was always work and professionalism and nothing more. I think he’s a great athlete. He’s a top guy in the division, and that’s a fight that would interest me. I think it’s a good matchup for me, and I think I’d knock him out and win. It’s a fight that interests me a lot.”
Santiago Ponzinibbio: Colby Covington’s departure from ATT ‘for the better’
