It may be hard to believe but Jon Anik and Colby Covington are still on good terms after “Chaos” launched an ugly tirade against the UFC play-by-play announcer threatening to orphan his children.
The situation turned awry when Anik came to the rescue of streaking contender Belal Muhammad last month after “Remember the Name” was passed over for a title shot in favor of Covington. Many members of the mixed martial arts (MMA) community were outraged because Covington hasn’t defeated anyone other than Jorge Masvidal since 2020 while Muhammad is riding a nine-fight unbeaten streak.
Needless to say, Covington was not happy to hear Anik’s support for Muhammad, who Covington considers to be a “racist.” The outspoken welterweight veteran delivered an unprovoked verbal assault on Anik that caused massive ripples around the MMA community. The disdain for Covington was at an all-time high.
“Jon Anik, dude, I don’t want your kids to grow up without a dad,” Covington told MMA Fighting last month. “Just realize you live in Boca [Raton], I live in Miami, motherf—ker. You’re not too far from me. So you better shut your f—king mouth. You poke the bear? Now you get the bear that comes after you.”
Until now, Anik has remained silent about the situation. The long-time UFC announcer ended up discussing the incident with Covington in private and says the too don’t have any lasting issues. That said, Anik was surprised to hear Covington drag his children into the conversation.
“I think you can argue he crossed the line, but I never felt particularly threatened,” said Anik during a recent interview with Morning Kombat. “More so I felt the support from Jorge Masvidal and Jamahal Hill and a lot of other athletes, and I certainly appreciate that. I don’t know that you need to inject anybody’s kids into the equation, and there will come a point in time on Snapchat or somewhere else where my 11-year-old daughter is going to come across that clip and there will be some explaining to do. But by and large, Colby and I are good.
“We have addressed it privately. We didn’t talk, we messaged each other. And it’s interesting because I’ve tried not to lean into it, right? I just leaned into it a little bit there, but for me, ultimately there were two parts of that navigation when he said what he said. First of all, what did I say that has upset the high-profile professional athlete? I’ve got to figure that out.
“Did I say something? Did I analytically go a little bit too far with my editorialization of the welterweight championship pecking order?” Anik continued. “Right? So once I realized that, eh, seems like his beef is really just that I gave Belal Muhammad a platform, and I didn’t really say anything that sensational, then you can address what he had said. And if I’m being honest, it was Colby in character for me. When I first saw the clip I thought nothing of it, and then my phone got pretty noisy and I thought more of it as the day went on.”
While it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Anik would offer forgiveness to Covington this early on that is exactly what has happened. It’s a testament to how professional and respected Anik is, but more importantly it shows that most people around the MMA community look at Covington as a gimmick. In fact, Anik feels like Covington’s actions were more in line with WWE than UFC and that he needs to watch who he puts around him.
“This was the first time that I can recall that it felt very WWE to me, as a UFC play-by-play guy,” Anik said.
“Certainly, I’ve been more off-put by maybe some of Colby’s cronies, who are like, ‘You don’t have to worry about him, but now maybe it’s me.’ But there have been high-profile athletes that have taken issue with what I have said, and I try to bury the hatchet and either stand by what I said or apologize. But there’s not a show that goes by that someone is not upset with something, fighter or coach. It’s the world in which we live.
“But what I wrote to Colby was, I just need to know that I still your respect enough to do my job,” Anik added. “Because I don’t need him to go to the fight meeting, but I need him to allow me to call the fight.”
What say you, Maniacs? Can we all forgive Covington like Anik has?
Let’s discuss below!