Colby Covington on Beef with Jorge Masvidal and How Friendship Turned into Feud

It's been billed as a clash of "bitter rivals."

This Saturday, in the main event of UFC 272, Colby Covington will battle Jorge Masvidal in a five-round welterweight fight.

It hasn't always been this way. They used to be best friends.

"We always had this picture-perfect dream," Covington told B/R ahead of UFC 272. "We even talked about it. We're like, 'Man, if we ever do have to fight each other, let's keep it cordial.'"

Covington met Masvidal when he was fresh out of college. Buoyed by an extremely successful wrestling career at Oregon State University, he decided to pursue professional mixed martial arts and ultimately started training at American Top Team in South Florida, Masvidal's longtime headquarters.

"I was testing out a couple gyms after I left college and got my degree and became Division I All-American," he said. "I was like 'I want to be a professional fighter. I want to change my life, go into mixed martial arts.' So I was testing out a couple gyms and I ran across him."

In 2022, Covington speaks as though he instantly loathed Masvidal. However, the pair got along so well that they not only decided to train together constantly, but share an apartment.

"I trained with him, and he just fell in love with me," Covington said. "He was like, 'Dude, I need to be with you every day. Let's be best friends. I need this wrestling. I need this pace. I'll do anything. Let's live together. Let's make this work, man, and I'll try and show you some striking, but you show me wrestling and you help evolve my game.'"

Thing started off well, but Covington claims he began to feel like he was being used.

"It just ended up becoming a one-sided relationship," he said. "He would just use me to help him with his wrestling and wrestling defense and help for his camps, but he didn't care about my career. It was just about him and his career."

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For Covington, things finally boiled over in 2017, when he and Masvidal both had a fight with submission wizard Demian Maia. Masvidal fought the Brazilian first, flaunting some slick submission defense but ultimately losing a split decision. Covington was next and mercilessly smothered his opponent to a clear-cut unanimous win.

"It was when he lost to Demian Maia to get a title shot," Covington said. "The UFC was like 'Hey, you beat Demian Maia we'll give you a title shot.' He wanted that title shot really bad. He lost to Demian Maia, and I ended up fighting Demian Maia the next fight. I went out there and left Demian Maia in a pool of his own blood, beat his ass in his home country.

"I just remember coming home and all the attention and the media was around me and [Masvidal] didn't like it," he added. "He's an egomaniac. He didn't like that I was getting all this attention."

It's worth noting at this point that much of the media attention Covington received after the Maia fight centered around the comments he made in his post-fight interview. He unleashed a vicious tirade, calling the Brazilian fans in attendance "filthy animals" and has since claimed that speech saved his career.

Covington doubled down in the years that followed, becoming an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump and, at one point, referring to the Black Lives Matter movement as "terrorists" and "criminals." Unsurprisingly, several of his UFC peers took issue with that racist remark.

But in Covington's side of the story, it was Masvidal who was the toxic influence.

"As soon as I started passing him up, doing better than him, that's when he turns his back on me and back-stabs me," he said. 

"He just hurt and set my career back a lot of time." 

But Masvidal has lobbed some very specific accusations at Covington. He has repeatedly accused his former teammate of refusing to pay one of their coaches, which he says "fast-forwarded" the decay of their friendship. The coach in question has corroborated this story.

"I would see signs in the way he treated his family, the way he talked about his sister, the way he talked about his mom," Masvidal told MMA Junkie's Danny Segura. "I was already like, 'Let me start separating myself from this guy little by little.' And then, bam, before I could even fully [separate], he betrayed my coach, didn't pay him the money that was agreed upon, and I knew since then I'm gonna hurt this guy."

Covington, however, is adamant he's blameless.

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"I have no regrets," he said. "This is not my fault. People can believe what they want to believe. His side of the story is completely different. It's not true. It's not facts. Don't believe anything Jorge says. He's a liar. He can't ever be a man of his word and just be honest. I'm honest. I know the real side of the story.

"That guy is a piece of s--t," he added. "As soon as I was free from him, that's when I really started having success and really started to grow into what I am today, and that's the best fighter in the world."

One way or the other, the two fighters now hate each other—either that, or they've conspired for an incredibly elaborate grift. Covington has left American Top Team and relocated to MMA Masters, just a 30-minute drive south on I-75. And when he speaks about the imminent opportunity to put a hurting on his former teammate, he sounds like he's foaming at the mouth.

"He hasn't just back-stabbed me," he said. "I know a lot of people want to see him pay and I'm glad I can make him pay on Saturday night.

"I want to make this look dominant. And more importantly, I want to make him squeal."

Grudge matches happen all the time in MMA—there's even another one on the UFC 272 bill. More often than not, the beef is squashed when the fight is over. The two fighters shake hands and hug it out and move on to more important things.

It will be very surprising if that's the scene that unfolds at the end of UFC 272.

"This is a blood feud," Covington said. "This is so, so deep. This isn't a manufactured beef like some of these fighters try to have. The UFC's never had a fight like this in the history of the company. It's irreconcilable. We're not coming back together as friends. We'll never shake hands. This will never be over.

"If we come face-to-face anywhere, it's a free pay-per-view."

Amid all the pre-fight intensity, it's easy to forget that a friendship was lost. The grim state of the world has turned many of us into cold, unfeeling robots, but when you really think about it, that's kind of sad.

Covington, despite all of his virulent trash talking, seems to recognize this, admitting a win over Masvidal will feel "bittersweet."

"I just never imagined it being like this," he said.

"But I'm excited. I'm really pumped up for this fight. I've never been more excited for a fight than I am for this fight."