COCONUT CREEK, Fla. – Jorge Masvidal and Colby Covington’s rivalry hit a point where American Top Team owner Dan Lambert asked both men to leave the gym.
But only one fighter ended up departing their longtime home, and that was Covington, who now trains out of neighboring MMA Masters.
“Yeah, it got toxic,” Lambert told MMA Junkie. “It got to the point where it was affecting the gym. We’ve had lots of fighters in this gym over the last 25 years. We’ve had people that love each other, we’ve had people who don’t like each other, but we’ve always been able to separate that, keep some professionalism in the gym and not let it affect the team. Their situation got to the point where it was affecting people inside the gym, and I couldn’t keep it under control. And at one point, we had to tell both of them to leave.”
Covington (16-3 MMA, 11-3 UFC) and Masvidal (35-15 MMA, 12-8 UFC), former best friends-turned enemies, will get to settle their differences when they square off in the UFC 272 main event on March 5 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Even without the dramatic storyline, Lambert said former welterweight title challengers Masvidal and Covington squaring off is massive.
“One guy’s on our team, and one guy isn’t,” Lambert said. “So there’s no shying away from it. This is a huge fight. Personal grudges aside, it’s a huge fight. You’ve got two of the best fighters in the world, in one of the best divisions in the world, going at it. They’re high-level guys. Take away Kamaru Usman, who’s the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world, and Jorge hasn’t lost a fight since 2017. Colby hasn’t lost one since 2015. So, big implications in the rankings for this and just big implications in MMA overall.”