Colby Covington says Jorge Masvidal friendship ‘ended a long time ago,’ open to fighting ‘Gamebred’ next

Over the past few weeks the mixed martial arts (MMA) community has sat back and watched the destruction of the friendship between welterweight contenders Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal.

Both fighters have been friends for years while training alongside one another at American Top Team (ATT) in Florida. They’ve utilized each other’s skill set to prepare for multiple trips to the Octagon and also to sharpen their respective tools in hopes of landing a UFC welterweight title shot.

Despite their storied past Covington and Masvidal seem to be drifting further apart as things heat up within the 170-pound division. From publicized trash talk to threats of in-gym brawls, “Chaos” and “Gamebred” are not on good terms.

But according to Covington, their friendship actually ended much sooner than their recent Twitter spats.

“That tweet came from Jorge trying to get in the way of my money and I take that money very serious,” Covington recently told MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin. “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.”

So when exactly did Covington and Masvidal start to lose their friendship? According to “Chaos,” everything started to fall apart after Masvidal failed to defeat Demian Maia back in 2017 and Covington ended up beating the Brazilian just five months later.

“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.”

If you haven’t seen the video that Covington is referencing you can check it out below. Covington, who is one of the very best wrestlers in MMA today, can be seen taking Masvidal down at will for roughly five minutes of hard grappling.

At this stage in their careers, given how good both fighters have looked inside of the Octagon, it’s very likely that Covington and Masvidal cross paths soon. Fighting one another likely wasn’t an option just two years ago, but Covington seems all in to battle Masvidal where it matters.

“He’s up in his feelings,” Covington said. “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.”

Masvidal is currently scheduled to take on Nate Diaz at UFC 244 this November for the one-off “Baddest Motherf—ker” belt, while Covington awaits his booking opposite current UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman. If both fighters win there’s a good chance Masvidal and Covington lock horns inside of the cage early next year to settle their growing beef.