Covington Rips 'Piece of S--t' Jon Jones, Cormier Talks Bader and More UFC News
Colby Covington Calls Out 'Piece of S--t' Jon Jones
There's no love lost between Colby Covington and Jon Jones, and the former's latest comments will only fan the flames between them.
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In March, Covington suggested the pair could put their differences aside and become friends.
However, he told BJPenn.com Radio that offer was "time sensitive" and said: "I'll destroy Jonny. I was destroying him in college, man, dumping him on his head every day in practice. You can go ask anybody in the Iowa Central wrestling room that was there when we were there."
Referencing Jones' failed drugs tests in 2016 and 2017, he added: "I'd love to get my hands on Jonny picograms, man. If you didn't have all those picograms in his system, he wouldn't be the same fighter he is today. He's a f--king piece of s--t."
Covington is 14-1 in MMA and won the UFC interim welterweight title in June last year, though he has since been stripped of the belt because of inactivity.
Light heavyweight champ Jones, 24-1, beat Alexander Gustafsson in December and Anthony Smith in March following his return from suspension last year.
Daniel Cormier Says Ryan Bader 'Wouldn't Be Able to Fight Me'
UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier was impressed with Ryan Bader's victory in the Bellator Heavyweight Grand Prix Final in January, but he doesn't think his counterpart can hang with him in the Octagon.
He told The MMA Hour (h/t MMA Fighting's Alexander K. Lee) that Bader has "done tremendous for himself," but:
"He wouldn't be able to fight me. I like the guy, but it's just different. It's just a little bit of a different approach. Look, at the end of the day I'm just nasty ol' boy. I learned that from [former UFC heavyweight champion] Josh Barnett. You get in there, you rub your elbow in their face, you kind of run your hand over their mouth. I'm of the old school, like Josh Barnett. Hurt 'em even when you're not doing much and people don't really like that. Even when I'm huggin' 'em, you know when it looks like I'm just huggin' 'em? I'm not just huggin' 'em. I'm really driving my knuckles into their body, even when I'm on top and I've got my elbow in the middle of the solar plexus, I'm pointing that elbow as deep in there as I can.
"There's always pain, and I learned that when Josh Barnett put the pain on me when we fought in Strikeforce. It's just a different type of mentality that most guys can't match. You've got to be a dog if you're going to beat Daniel Cormier—and I don't know if he has that dog in him."
MMA Fighting's Guilherme Cruz and ESPN's Ariel Helwani noted how far Bader has come since he was mooted as a potential opponent for DC during his UFC days:
Bader is 27-5 in MMA, with all of his defeats coming in the UFC.
He left for Bellator in 2017, where he has achieved the equivalent to Cormier in holding the heavyweight and light heavyweight belts simultaneously. DC held both UFC belts after he beat Stipe Miocic in July last year before relinquishing the light heavyweight title in December.
A UFC return for Bader could be a lucrative one after his exploits in Bellator, but it seems Cormier won't be among those queuing up to face him.
Anthony Smith Says There's 'No Game Plan' for Alexander Gustafsson Fight
Anthony Smith will take on Alexander Gustafsson on Saturday in the latter's native Sweden, but he's not going there with a specific plan of attack for their fight.
Smith lost via decision to Jon Jones in his last bout, and he told MMA Junkie's Steven Marrocco he's going with a different approach this time:
"I think I got away from who I am. I'm a pressure fighter who counters and swings hammers. That's what I do. I drop people into ugly, knockdown drag-outs and I beat them mentally.
"I think those last fights, I overthought it. So that's been the whole focus. Just be me. There is no game plan for Alex. The last few fights, there have been pretty strict game plans, and they haven’t been my best performances."
Gustafsson's last fight also saw him take on and lose to Jones.
While Smith conceded that he put in a poor performance against Jones, he felt Gustafsson "has a history [where] he can get into some fire and fall apart. And that's not me. I don't fall apart in the fire."
Smith is 31-14 in MMA, though the majority of the defeats he has suffered came early on in his career.
Gustafsson is 18-5, but four of the losses have been inflicted in his last seven fights.
If either of them wants another shot at Jones and his light heavyweight title, they'll need to start with a win here.
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