Over the years, welterweight contender Colby Covington has slowly become the most controversial figure in the UFC. He made headlines when he called Brazilian fans “filthy animals” while as of late, he is publicly showing support of Donald Trump and sounds off on Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
He mainly targeted his fellow fighters with regular trash-talking on social media, with champion Woodley being a prime target, particularly in terms to how he’s a “boring” fighter and is scared to face him.
After spending the better part of a year ignoring Covington’s incessant trash talk, ‘The Chosen One’ wants to put a beating on the newly-crowned UFC welterweight champion like never before. Woodley and Covington were training partner at American Top Team (ATT) and ‘Chaos’ claims he made Woodley quit during a planned five-round sparring session that ended after three. But Woodley who’s expected to meet Covington in a title unification bout late in the year, says he actually tortured him and forced the trash talker to leave the sparring early.
Woodley details the sparring session with Covington during a recent episode of ‘The MMA Hour.’
“I talked to (coach) Din (Thomas), I said, ‘Din, you know what? I’m going to take him down, and watch how he reacts.’ And I tortured him for the whole practice,” Woodley said, “He ran off the mat basically crying, storming off, and I have people who are willing to come forth and testify to the training camp. Tell me one person that’s going to testify that Colby whooped my ass in practice. Tell me one person that’s going to lie under oath and let God above hear them say he beat me in anything. He ain’t ever beat me at thumb wrestling.
“Not only has he never taken me down, he’s never won a millisecond of a round. I can’t even imagine when he’s won an exchange of combinations. He ran from me the entire training camp. He went home early, saying that his toe was hurting. And when it was time to really wrestle, he had my striking partner … in there with a broken wrist wrestling me, while Colby was sitting in the weight room acting like he didn’t know what was going on.”
Colby Covington is the most hated guy in the MMA and Woodley called him the ‘horrible human being’ as well asshole training partner.
“He was brought into training camp to help me train for Rory MacDonald, and I’ve never met a lazier piece of sh*t than Colby Covington, a more horrible human being than Colby Covington,” Woodley said. “When it was time to wrestle, ask him how many takedowns he actually scored on me. Zero. Ask him why he turned blue like a f*cking blueberry when I was choking him out and he refused to tap. So, he is an asshole training partner, he’s a horrible human being, nothing that he says is factual, and I told him. I called him and I said, ‘Hey, I know you feel like you’ve got to do this, this is the path that Conor McGregor made and you think this is what you’ve got to do, but you’re really making yourself look bad.’”
If we’re honest, the stuff that comes out of Covington’s mouth is so Trash Talk 101; it’s hardly worth noticing, and it’s a way for him to make money.
“I said, ‘I gave you your one weekend on FOX when I was on-air and that’s all. So you can say whatever you want, but I’m not going to respond to it.’ He said, ‘Ah man, I’m just trying to make money for both of us, man. You know, we’ll both eat at the end of the day. Light at the tunnel.’ So when somebody’s doing a good [job promoting themselves], like with Conor (McGregor) or Chael (Sonnen), I hate to unveil them. But when you have [an employee] of American Top Team scripting and writing your stuff, and when 99 percent of your social media is my face, you need to check your man visa because you done lost all points.”
Woodley who’s fully recovered from shoulder surgery, looking to make a comeback in summer said he’s going to kill Covington when they clash in the Octagon.
“So it’s just like, I held onto this for so long and I let him talk, but I’m going to embarrass him in the press conference, I’m going to embarrass him in the fight. I hope he never fights again. And the UFC should be embarrassed for getting behind this. I’m embarrassed.”
We can expect a showdown between two bitter rivals sometime later this year for title unification Until then, expect a lot more trash talk from these two ex-training partners.