Grudge match alert! These former friends are going to be facing off as foes in the highly-anticipated title fight this Saturday at UFC 272 in Las Vegas.
The Backstory
Former training partners, former teammates, former roommates, and former friends. What went wrong?
When they first met in 2011 at ATT in Florida, Covington was a fresh wrestler from Oregon and Masvidal has already been training MMA for quite some time. Covington, who is well known for his outbursts and contentious personality, did not make himself well-liked at his new gym.
But for whatever reason, Masvidal took a liking to him. The two quickly started bonding and doing everything together, including playing poker at the local casino. At some point, Masvidal invited Covington to live with him in his apartment.
But things escalated because of Covington’s character, and a financial dispute between Covington and one of Masvidal’s coaches. We’ve seen them publicly trade spats and insults at each other over the last few years.
Since they grew apart, they each have grown more successful in their respective fighting careers. Ultimately in 2020, the head coach at ATT instituted a rule that no members could trash talk each other anymore. Masvidal immediately broke that rule. So the head coach put his foot down.
He sent a group text: “I liked you guys a hell of a lot better when you were broke and cared about the team instead of just yourselves,” Lambert said he wrote. “Neither one of you can come back to the gym. I hope you end up fighting each other and beating the living s— out of each other.”
Fight Preview
Covington enters the match with an 11-3 record and Masvidal at 12-8. Covington is the better wrestler while Masvidal is the better striker. But both have fallen short in trying to grab the welterweight title from Kamaru Usman. So honestly the match is about who can prove they are the better contender?
It will be an exciting one, not only because of the rivalry, but because they haven’t fought before. It will set the tone for who’s going to walk away owning the media, and most likely set up a trilogy match up.
