Colby Covington is in some hot water with the UFC over his controversial post-fight interview at UFC Sao Paulo.
As seen at the event on Saturday, October 28, 2017, at Ginásio do Ibirapuera in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the welterweight fighter pulled off a massive win over two-time title contender Demian Maia in the co-main event.
After the fight, he said that Brazil was “a dump” and its inhabitants to be “filthy animals.” These comments were in line with his statements he made about the country in the lead-up to the fight.
Obviously, it didn’t sit well with fight fans who attended the event. Thus, they hurled garbage at Covington as he left the Octagon to make his way to the backstage area.
UFC senior vice president David Shaw let it be known at the post-fight presser that officials are aware of the situation and that they will make a decision on how to address Covington’s behavior soon. For someone who wants a title shot, this could be a major problem.
“Overall, I thought the fan reactions throughout the course of the night were fantastic generally,” Shaw said at the evening’s post-show presser.
“Brazilian fans are obviously very intelligent, very knowledgeable about the sport, very scrutinizing, and generally it was loud and energetic and boisterous the whole time.
In terms of the fan reactions with Covington fighting, there’s no way for us to support any fans throwing items at any staff or any fighters. However, having said that, we are taking the situation with Covington very seriously. It’s already being reviewed by our code of conduct committee, and it’s something that we are not very happy about.”
Keep in mind that this isn’t the first time that fighters have talked trash about Brazil while building up the hype for a fight against Brazilian athlete. Two-time UFC middleweight title contender Chael Sonnen targeted opponent Anderson Silva’s home country.
Also, UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor did a bit of trash talk while he was building up his fight with then-featherweight champion Jose Aldo. McGregor stated on record by stating, “I own this town, I own Rio de Janeiro. I would invade his favela on horseback and would kill anyone who wasn’t fit to work, but we’re in a new time, so I’ll whoop his ass instead.”
Neither Sonnen nor McGregor was given any sort of punishment from the UFC. It should be noted that their comments were aimed at their opponents compared to Covington who aimed his comments directly at the Brazilian audience.
“It’s not for me to say at this point what could possibly happen, but we’ll be reviewing it over the course of the weekend and early next week,” Shaw said.
Covington issued a statement on the situation by clearing up his intentions:
On the walk out I get called every name in the book then they chant "You Gonna Die" I poke back at them a bit and everyone loses their mind?
— Colby Covington (@ColbyCovMMA) October 29, 2017
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