Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal likely won’t fight anytime soon – not in the Octagon anyways – but the growing feud between the two ex-friends continues to make headlines. Case in point, now both fighters have provided their take on why their friendship ultimately hit the rocks.

Covington’s recent comments

Masvidal and Covington called each other friends for quite some time, but when Colby referred to Masvidal as a “journeyman” last month, people started to wonder whether the two were still buddies. Covington said Masvidal remained his best friend, but after it was announced that “Gamebred” will fight Nate Diaz in the headliner of UFC 244, the two have been trading verbal shots. Most recently, Covington claimed that Masvidal started to get “jealous” of him, after the wrestler decisively beat Demian Maia (the latter defeated Masvidal earlier in 2017). Covington also claimed Masvidal turned on him after he won the interim welterweight title last summer, by defeating Rafael dos Anjos.

Masvidal responds

Well, not surprisingly, Masvidal has a completely different story, in terms of why he and Covington are no longer friends. The rugged vet recently appeared on the Dan LeBatard Show, and he had this to say about Covington and his “Chaos” persona (quotes via MMA Fighting):

“He ripped off my coach, that was his coach. We were with him until his title fight. After he won the title, he owed him a certain amount of money, didn’t pay him,” Masvidal said. “I said if you don’t pay him I’m going to f—k you up. My coach got in between it, it doesn’t have to be like this, let it slide, since thing I ain’t talked to the dude.”

“…We were [friends] until he ripped off my coach and since then I ain’t talked to him,” Masvidal said. “He’s mad because people don’t care to see him fight. They want to see him lose. That’s what they tune into. He does this whole heel thing because he couldn’t get people to regularly watch his fights so then he said if I go over the top, create this persona, people will hate me, then people will tune in.

“I don’t think it sells fights,” Masvidal said about Covington’s persona. “If you go look at the people that tuned into his last fight, he has the lowest watched ESPN MMA event. I don’t know if that mathematically transgresses or what. We’re making him famous right now.”

It will be interesting to see what Covington has to say about Masvidal’s accusation that he “ripped off” a coach at American Top Team. And what about Masvidal’s claims about Colby being “mad” because more people aren’t invested in seeing him compete?

There’s no question that considerably more people have become aware of Covington, due to his recent run and controversial statements. But, it is interesting that Kamaru Usman, who Covington has argued would be the B side in their fight, has 20,000 more followers on Twitter. Tyron Woodley, who Colby repeatedly trashed, has three times as many followers. Ben Askren, who is relatively new to the UFC and has dealt with criticism his entire career for being wrestling centric, also has three times as many followers.

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