Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
“They don’t want to pay any of the fighters because they want everybody to be poor, so they keep back coming back and fighting all the time, and fighting six times a year.”
Colby Covington has once against put the UFC on blast for their business ethics, this time accusing the premiere fight promotion of using ‘bully tactics’ and ‘slave labor negotiations’ to control their fighters.
“That’s how UFC does business, they do the bully tactics,” Covington told BJPenn.com in a recent interview. “They do the slave labor negotiations. It’s sick man. They don’t want to pay any of the fighters because they want everybody to be poor, so they keep back coming back and fighting all the time, and fighting six times a year.”
Covington, the former UFC interim welterweight champion, was expected to take on official champ Kamaru Usman in a headlining title bout at UFC 244. But the bout reportedly fell through after ‘Chaos’ refused the UFC’s offer and accused the company of treating him as a ‘hostage’ during the negotiation process.
Covington went on to criticize the UFC for severely undervaluing him as a fighter and always bailing on their promises.
“They said, ‘Oh, show up for the Robbie Lawler fight,’” he said. “And needless to say, Robbie was training for 12 weeks for that fight. He was getting ready for [Tyron] Woodley. . . So I showed up on four weeks’ notice, without a training camp because I got a nasty cut from a head butt in the first week in training camp. I couldn’t even train. Pretty much had to run on the treadmill every day, that’s it. That’s not training timing, accuracy, all that. So I showed up with no camp, to save the UFC, to save the main event, to bring the First Family, to get the President Tweeting about the UFC. To get all the troops all over the world watching in their bases because I’m America’s and the troops’ favorite fighter [and] the UFC still doesn’t do good for me. I make them millions and millions and they just continue to just pocket all that money, and they don’t want to pay me a fraction — not even five percent of any of that money. It’s ridiculous how they can pocket 95, 98 percent and not give the fighters anymore than the two or three percent.”
“The UFC always makes promises, they’ve made me so many promises,” Covington continued. “[They say] ‘Oh, do this and we’ll give you a favor here. We’ll throw you a bone next time.’ They never end up throwing that bone back, man. They just use you even more next time. So it’s just… I’m not going to be played for a fool anymore, man. They want to do business like that, then they’re not going to get any business. That’s that.”
With Usman vs. Covington scrapped for UFC 244, Ultimate Fighting Championship went ahead and booked a headlining ‘BMF’ title bout between welterweight fan favourites Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal. The highly anticipated pay-per-view takes place later this year, Nov. 2 at Madison Square Garden, New York.