According to Colby Covington, the delay on his fight with Jorge Masvidal is not at his end.
Both men have been linked to a potential matchup, with Covington saying that he was approached by the UFC right after his fifth-round TKO of Tyron Woodley at UFC Fight Night 178 in September.
Covington (16-2 MMA, 11-2 UFC) claims he already verbally agreed to the fight, but it’s been a while since he’s heard any updates from the UFC.
“I’m good to go on my end,” Covington told Submission Radio. “I’m ready to go. I gave them my verbal (agreement), and I’m a man of my word. I’m gonna show up and do what I do best, that’s win and fight hard, (and) put on a show for the fans around the world.”
Masvidal (35-14 MMA, 14-8 UFC), who last competed in July when he lost out to welterweight champion Kamaru Usman at UFC 251, is yet to publicly show interest in a matchup with Covington.
“Getting Jorge ‘Street Judas’ Masvidal on board is a whole other story,” Covington said. “The guy, I mean, he’s got no options, and he thinks he’s gonna fight Conor (McGregor), he wants the easy fight with the ‘soy boy’ Nate Diaz. The guy is desperate right now. You don’t want to fight the No. 1 guy in the world? I’m the No. 1 guy in the world.”
He continued, “Where’s he at now? Now you haven’t heard a peep out of him. He’s completely silent. I think it’s going to show the fans the truth, and he’s gonna lose all that street cred. All that street cred for being a badass mother (expletive), for being a street king and a street fighter, and just the baddest dude who would show up at any time, he’s losing all that credibility by the day, because he’s nowhere to be found.”
The former best friends-turned-rivals have a big history, having trained and lived with each other during their time at American Top Team. Covington recently departed his longtime gym after getting into a rift with numerous teammates, including Masvidal, and is currently training at MMA Masters in Miami, FL.
Having spent almost a decade on the mats with Masvidal, Covington is confident that he’d have his way with “Gamebred” if they fought.
“There’s a reason he doesn’t want to fight me, because he’s experienced this fight before,” Covington said. “He knows how this fight plays out, and he doesn’t want to get embarrassed in front of the whole world. So, he’s in hiding right now.”
He continued, “They (UFC) said it was gonna be a tough task because he doesn’t want to fight you. They pretty much told me that he plain and simple told them that he doesn’t like the style match-up. You’re in the UFC fighting the best fighters in the world, you claim to want to be the best in the world, and you don’t like a style match-up? Like, what is this, The Real Divas of Atlanta? What are we doing? I thought we were the Ultimate Fighting Championship, not the Ultimate Feelings Championship. That’s why he’s never been the Ultimate Fighting Champion. He’s been nothing more than a broken mediocre fighting champion.”
Colby Covington waiting on Jorge Masvidal fight, but ‘he’s nowhere to be found’
