Colby Covington condemned Khamzat Chimaev’s involvement in a cryptocurrency scam that reportedly ripped off his fans to the tune of a million dollars.
Ahead of Chimaev’s return to the Octagon at UFC 308 in October, ‘Borz’ was embroiled in controversy after he had advertised a meme coin called SMASH, named after his popular “smash” or “smesh” catchphrase. Chimaev hyped the coin on his social media channels which prompted the value of the coin to grow exponentially. 24 hours later, the value plummeted to zero, leaving many fans feeling like they’d had the rug pulled out from under them.
Shortly after, Chimaev’s manager Majdi Shammas took full responsibility, claiming that he had encouraged Chimaev to record the videos, but didn’t do enough research to ensure that the company they were working with was legit.
Colby Covington isn’t buying that excuse.
“Dude, he’s an absolute scumbag. The fact that he rug-pulled all his fans—that’s the most disgusting act I’ve ever seen in MMA. Him and Khabib, like, just absolute scammers,” Covington said during Wednesday’s UFC Tampa media day.
“Dude, you’re making good money with the UFC. Now you’re going to rug-pull and do a fake MCO and scam all your fans for millions of dollars? I mean, these are fans that are working their asses off every day at McDonald’s or other low-income-paying jobs. They’re investing in him because they trust the fighter and they like their fighter. And for him to just crap on all his fans like that? It’s disgusting. “I mean, that’s why he’s c*m-shot, you know? The guy’s literally just the worst person on Earth. It’s so sad that he did that to his fans.”
Colby Covington doesn’t think chimaev is ‘anything special’ inside the octagon
Covington also took aim at Chimaev’s skills inside the Octagon, suggesting that the unbeaten Chechen monster isn’t nearly as special as the UFC likes to suggest.
“As an MMA fighter, I don’t think he’s anything special. You know, I think he got exposed in that Gilbert Burns fight—that he doesn’t have good cardio,” Covington said. “I thought Usman beat him, you know, when they fought. If that would have been five rounds, Usman would have beat him for sure. But even in three rounds, I thought Usman beat him 2-1.
“So, I don’t see anything special out of CH. He needs to stop scamming his fans.”
Following a lackluster showing against then-welterweight champion Leon Edwards around this same time last year, Covington is back to headline the UFC’s final event of 2024.
Heading to Tampa, Florida, ‘Chaos’ will square off with rising knockout artist Joaquin Buckley in a bout that could carry major title implications in the new year.
