LONDON – Colby Covington did not mince words toward Khamzat Chimaev.
Covington (17-3 MMA, 12-3 UFC), who weighed in as a backup for Saturday’s UFC 286 title-fight headliner between welterweight champion Leon Edwards and Kamaru Usman, took aim at the “unprofessionals” in the division.
When asked whom he was referring to, Covington went off on Chimaev (12-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC), who missed weight by 7.5 pounds for his originally scheduled bout against Nate Diaz at UFC 279. Chimaev fought Kevin Holland in a 180-pound catchweight bout instead and won the fight with a first-roundn submission.
“He talks all this sh*t. He said all these things about me in the media,” Covington said backstage at UFC 286. “Of course they’re going to say things in the media. They don’t say things to my face or in the octagon. He’s been saying, ‘Oh, I want to fight for the title at 170. I want to fight Colby,’ this and that. The guy quit to the common cold. The guy quit f*cking on a weight cut when he had the best professionals the UFC (Performance Institute) can offer.
“Millions of dollars put into this guy in marketing, and he had the easiest fight in the division, the soy boy Nate Diaz, and he still couldn’t make weight. He missed weight by nine pounds, and he’s laughing it off like this is a f*cking joke. He’s a f*cking joke. The guy f*cking sucks at fighting. He’s unprofessional, and I don’t want to ever hear that guy’s name again. You guys hype him up to be this great giant. The guy couldn’t hold my f*cking jock strap.”
Dana White mentioned an intention to book Covington vs. Chimaev in the past, but Covington says he was never offered the fight.
“It was never formally presented to me,” Covington said. “We talked about it. It was the fight that I wanted. I wanted to derail that hype train. Everybody was building him up to be colossal, like he’s this great fighter. I saw the quitter in him from the start. I knew he had no cardio. I knew I would expose his gas tank and make him break inside five rounds. The guy quit in three rounds. What’s he going to do when he gets porn star cardio and the cardio king for five rounds?
“I was begging to fight that. I was chomping at the bit. but we saw how unprofessional he was. They gave him the easiest fight, Nate Diaz, to set it up to fight me the next fight – to build this up and make it a spectacle, and he couldn’t do it. … The guy’s a clown. I don’t want to ever hear that guy’s name in this division again. Let that dog-faced motherf*cker rot in ’85.”
Chimaev addressed Covington’s comments on his YouTube channel, and vowed he’s not the reason the fight never materialized. The undefeated fighter said he never chooses his opponents and claimed “these chickens lie so much.”
“Colby is lying,” Chimaev said. “He doesn’t want to fight. I swear with everything I have. I swear with the gods. I accepted the fight four times. All the Muslims understand – I swear to Quran, I (got the call four times): ‘You want to fight?’ I said yes. I had conversations with Sean Shelby that show it, as well, that we’re going to fight with this guy, but it never happened.
“That is normal. You can lie at press conferences and make it a show. For me, I can’t lie. I’m real. I’m who I am – if they like it, (or if) they don’t like it. That guy plays too much. I saw him at the PI and he saw me and turned around. He ran somewhere. I didn’t see him anymore.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 286.
