‘He’s That Same Level Of Bad Guy’ As Hitler

Colby Covington keeps digging the hole deeper and deeper.

The UFC 296 fight week was the definition of going from “zero to 100” on the heat scale between mixed martial arts (MMA) rivals. Relatively tame in their exchanges before the week rolled around, it only took one ill-advised line from Covington to get Leon Edwards motivated and locked in beyond what he already was to defend his Welterweight title on fight night.

At the pre-fight press conference last week (Dec. 14, 2023), Covington stated he’d take Edwards to the “seventh layer of hell,” where he could say “what’s up” to his father. Edwards’ father was murdered when he was nine years old, and the champion reacted by tossing a water bottle at “Chaos” before beating him via unanimous decision in UFC 296’s main event. Despite the lopsided beatdown and backlash received for his comments, Covington is continuing to take things one step further.

“Why would I feel bad about anything I say about someone who is such a criminal and put so much pain in peoples’ lives? I’m not gonna feel bad for someone like that,” Covington said on the PBD Podcast. “Just like [Adolf] Hitler, he was a terrible person. I’m not comparing him to Hitler, but I’m saying it’s that same level of bad guy. The guy sold drugs, sex sex-trafficked women.

“You can look up the public records about his dad, it’s not my fault,” he continued. “He’s the one that put him in the limelight in the first place and tried to make him a sympathetic figure. ‘Oh, I lost my father, oh this and that,’ and tried to make it be like, ‘Let’s give Leon sympathy for this.’ That’s not something you should give someone sympathy for. If my dad was doing things like that, I would call him out on that too. He probably deserves to be six feet under because he did a lot of bad things to people in this life so I’m gonna feel bad or celebrate that person like he’s a hero. That guy’s not a hero, he’s a villain. He’s a terrible person who did terrible things.”

According to Covington, UFC CEO, Dana White, told him after the press conference that the pay-per-view (PPV) numbers for UFC 296 jumped up by 25 percent after his comments. Therefore, Covington ultimately believes it was an overall benefit for “Rocky.”

“I put more money in Leon’s bank account and he should be thanking me for that,” Covington said.