Colby Covington interested in settling 'personal rivalry' with Dustin Poirier after 'fluke win' over Conor McGregor
It’s no secret Colby Covington wants the welterweight strap next, but he hopes to cross paths with Dustin Poirier down the line.
Covington (16-2 MMA, 11-2 UFC) attempted to rattle Poirier during his UFC 264 fight week against Conor McGregor when he leaked a video in which “The Diamond” is seen dropping his training partner and shouting “And new!” during a sparring session.
Poirier (28-6 MMA, 20-5 UFC) addressed the video and clarified the fighter, Titan FC veteran Felipe Douglas, wasn’t an amateur like Covington claimed. But Covington isn’t planning on letting Poirier off the hook just yet and thinks he got lucky in his TKO win over McGregor on Saturday when the Irish superstar broke his leg at the end of Round 1.
“I thought it showed the ‘charitable, nice guy,’ the true character of Dustin ‘The Doofus’ Soirier last night,” Covington said in an interview with Fanatics View. “He’s out there strutting in front of Conor’s face. Obviously, it was a fluke. Conor broke his leg. It was a fluke decision ending. It wasn’t a knockout, it wasn’t a clear-cut decision, it wasn’t a submission. The guy is out there strutting in front of the guy’s face at a downfall when (McGregor) made his career and did everything for Dustin to give him this big fight.
“I thought it was funny. It showed his true colors, character – he’s got his little prop, his wife Jolie out there. Obviously, she’s a prop. He only uses her for a prop because he knows he’s a piece of sh*t person and he wants to act like he’s a nice guy, family man, a father and a good husband. So it just showed his true character (Saturday) night. He’s a dirtbag, and so is the whole camp he resides at.”
Covington got a lot of backlash for going after Poirier during his fight week, but “Chaos” reminded everyone the pair go way back. Prior to parting ways with his longtime gym, American Top Team, things started to heat up when Covington picked Khabib Nurmagomedov to beat his then-teammate Poirier at UFC 242. Poirier didn’t take kindly to the prediction, promising that it’ll be “on sight” the next time he saw him.
“People were giving me a lot of stuff this week. They were like, ‘Why are you picking on Dustin?’ Dude, Dustin weighs more than me,” Covington said. “We used to weigh in at American Top Team all the time. The guy would weigh 188, 190. I’m like 185. I just don’t want to cut a bunch of weight because I know I’m the best in the world at the weight class that I fight in.
“I don’t have to look for a weight advantage and cut all this weight to feel like I’m the bigger guy. So all the people saying ‘Stop picking on lightweights’ – I’m picking on a guy that’s bigger than me. It’s not my fault Dustin was saying to the media, ‘It’s on sight when I see Colby.’ But I’ve seen the guy 40 or 50 times since he said it’s on sight, so who’s the man of their word? Who’s not a man of their word?”
While both men are expected to challenge for the title in their respective weight classes next, Covington wants to settle his differences with Poirier at some point.
“His best money opportunity if he wants to do good business is to come up to 170 and see daddy,” Covington said. “This is a personal rivalry. This isn’t like I’m trying to pick on someone and there’s no narrative to the fight. This guy, we go back 10 years training together and he said some things to me in the gym, I’ve said some things to him. There’s deep, deep, deep personal issues with this drama and this beef, and I just hope they get settled in the octagon some day. But if they don’t, then the fans get to know who daddy is.”