Colby Covington went on an expletive-filled rant against Khamzat Chimaev for missing weight at UFC 279.
There remains to be a massive hype behind Khamzat Chimaev, and Colby Covington is having none of it. “Chaos” was present at the O2 Arena for UFC 286 as a backup for the main event, and he didn’t mince his words on the 28-year-old undefeated fighter, whom he referred to as a “dog-faced motherf–r.”
“He talks all this shit, he said all these things about me in the media,” Covington told reporters during a media scrum. “Of course, they’re gonna say things in the media. They don’t say things to my face or in the Octagon. He’s been saying, ‘Oh, I want to fight for the title at 170, I want to fight Colby, this and that.’”
Covington’s gripes were mainly about Chimaev’s weight miss at UFC 279, which led to a massive change in the card. Khamzat ended up fighting at a 180-pound catchweight against Kevin Holland, who was originally paired up against Li Jingliang.
“The guy quit to the common cold. The quit f—ng on a weight cut when he had the best professionals at the UFC P.I. can offer. Millions of dollars were put into this guy in marketing, and he had the easiest fight in the division, the soy boy Nate Diaz. And he still couldn’t make weight.
“He missed weight by nine pounds, and he’s laughing it off like this is a f—ng joke. He’s a f—ng joke. The guy f—ng sucks at fighting, he’s unprofessional, and I don’t want to ever hear that guy’s name again. You guys hype him up to be this great giant. The guy couldn’t hold my f—ng jock strap.”
When asked if he would still entertain a fight with Chimaev, Covington said this in response.
“(The fight) was never formally presented to me. We talked about it, it was the fight that I wanted. I wanted to derail that hype train. Everybody was building him up to be colossal like he’s this great fighter. I saw the quitter in him from the start. I knew he had no cardio, I knew I would expose his gas tank and make him break inside five rounds.
“The guy quit in three rounds. What’s he gonna do when he gets pornstar cardio and the cardio king for five rounds? I was begging to fight that, I was chomping at the bit, but we saw how unprofessional he was.
“They gave him the easiest fight, Nate Diaz, to set it up to fight me the next fight. To build this up and make it a spectacle. And he couldn’t do it.
“The guy’s a clown, I don’t want to ever hear that guy’s name in this division again. Let that dog-faced motherf—r rot in ’85.”
Chimaev had been jumping around between 170 and 185 throughout his three-year UFC stint. He’d been struggling to finalize a next bout because according to him, all four opponent offers fell through, and “nobody wants to fight.”
About the author: Milan Ordoñez has been covering combat sports since 2012 and has been part of the Bloody Elbow staff since 2016. He’s also competed in amateur mixed martial arts and submission grappling tournaments. (full bio)