Colby Covington explains beef with ‘jealous’ Jorge Masvidal and ‘egomaniac’ Dustin Poirier

Colby Covington already has several feuds simmering with fighters on the UFC roster and now there’s two more added to that list who train under the same roof as him.

Last week, the outspoken former welterweight champion took aim at “trash bag” Jorge Masvidal, who he once called his best friend as he was making his way up the welterweight rankings in the UFC.

Masvidal has been making a lot of noise in the division after knocking out Ben Askren and Darren Till in consecutive fights but he landed on Covington’s radar after he accepted a title fight against reigning welterweight champion Kamaru Usman at UFC 244.

When the UFC couldn’t come to terms with Covington on an offer for the title fight, they immediately shifted gears by asking Masvidal to take his place. That was enough for Covington to unleash on his American Top Team teammate in a viral message on social media.

According to Covington, his problems with Masvidal stretch back much further than jockeying for position for a title shot but that was definitely the move that forced him to react.

“That tweet came from Jorge trying to get in the way of my money and I take that money very serious,” Covington told MMA Fighting. “That’s food on the table for my mom, my dad, the life they never had, my family. I come from a very broke background and now he’s trying to mess with my money and my business so now you’re a competitor.

“Now you’re in my sights. That’s been a long time coming. People think we’ve been friends recently but that friendship ended a long time ago.”

While the welterweight title contenders continued to root for each other publicly in interviews, Covington says he hasn’t been close with Masvidal for nearly two years.

The origins of their issues started after he fought Demian Maia in Brazil and the friendship effectively ended after he won the interim welterweight title with a victory over Rafael dos Anjos in 2018.

“When he got beat up by Demian Maia and then I had to come up and clean up the scraps and completely decimate Demian Maia in his hometown of Sao Paulo, that’s when the relationship ended,” Covington explained. “Jorge got jealous. He got bitter. He wanted something that he couldn’t have, which was beating Demian Maia and be in position to fight for the title.

“Then as soon as I won the belt, that’s when he completely turned on me and he started talking s—t to me at the gym, at fights he’s saying stuff to me. I’m like dude stop. You’re a light round. You want to see how me and Jorge goes? Go look on YouTube. I wasn’t even trying hard. I know the haters don’t know how to turn on a girl but they should learn to turn on YouTube.”

As far as the future goes, Covington doesn’t care if he runs into Masvidal in the gym, the street or the UFC Octagon because he’s happy to settle their beef in either location.

“He’s up in his feelings,” Covington said about Masvidal. “I’m the Ultimate Fighting Champion, Jorge is the ultimate feelings champion. He’s all up in his feelings. He’s jealous that I’m making more money, banging hotter chicks and if he wants to come say something to Colby “Choas” Covington, he’s going to get slapped upside his mouth.

“It’s a real possibility that he’s my next fight. If Usman keeps playing games and hardball with the UFC, they might just strip him and it could be me versus Jorge. I’m not afraid to go down that path and have to fight him. It’s a rather easy fight but if we’ve got to fight, we’ve got to fight. We might be fighting before that. We both train at American Top Team under Dan Lambert so you never know what’s going to happen.”

Covington also managed to get under Dustin Poirier’s skin as he was preparing for his fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 242 this past weekend.

Poirier took aim at his teammate during the post fight press conference when he said he would never sell out a teammate like ‘f—king Colby Covington’.

According to him, that fiery response from Poirier all stems from a fight prediction he made on his Instagram page where he chose Nurmagomedov to win while commented that the Louisiana native “couldn’t stuff a nose bleed” much less a takedown.

“That’s the only reason Dustin is all mad at me and calling me a sellout because I picked against him in the fight,” Covington said. “But how does that make me a sellout? If anything I bought in and he tapped out. I’m giving the people America’s pick of the week. I don’t want to let the people down. That’s why I’m the people’s champion because I bless people and make their bank accounts great again. So if he’s mad about my opinion, I’m sorry, you could have proved me wrong. You can prove my opinion wrong.

“I proved his opinion wrong. Dustin picked against me, he’s best friends with Robbie Lawler and he picked Robbie and he wanted Robbie to beat me. Did I get mad? Did I make excuses? No, I went out there and proved him wrong and beat Robbie Lawler’s ass every single round and set a UFC strikes record. He could have done the same but no, he wants to make excuses ‘Colby picked against me, he’s a sellout’.”

According to Covington, he actually offered to help Poirier get ready for Nurmagomedov by offering to train together so he would get some time with a high level wrestler much like the opponent he was about to face for the undisputed lightweight title.

Covington claims Poirier turned him down and then paid for his hubris in the fight.

“I was willing to offer up my services to help him train to give him that pressure look, that pressure wrestling style and he didn’t want to take it,” Covington said. “He wanted to act like he was better than everyone in the gym. That’s why I’ve never respected Dustin anyways. All these people that act like they are such nice and good people on camera, they are the complete opposite when the camera’s not on. They’re fake, how do they treat others that can’t do anything for them.

“I see how he treats people who can’t do anything for him. He treats them like s—t. He acts like he’s better than them. He’s an egomaniac and it’s pathetic. He’s a bully to all these other guys but he can’t bully me and he knows that. He knows I’ll kick his ass.”