“Makes sense” – During his friendship with Jorge Masvidal, Sean Strickland alleges that Colby Covington exhibited ‘shady’ behavior
Sean Stickland has offered his two-cents on the breakdown of the friendship between Jorge Masvidal and Colby Covington. The UFC middleweight champion has accused 'Chaos' of acting questionably whilst the two welterweights were teammates.
Masvidal and Covington's rivalry will go down in UFC history as one of the most controversial and personal. After spending a number of years as friends and training partners during their early days in the promotion, things escalated between the pair when 'Gamebred' accused Covington of talking smack about his family.
This led to a bitter back-and-forth between the two fighters for a number of months before they were eventually booked to face-off in the octagon in March last year. 'Chaos' went on to dominate the fight across the five rounds and take the unanimous decision win, but their bout is infamously remembered for what happened days later.
Following the fight, Colby Covington was sucker-punched by Jorge Masvidal outside a restaurant in Miami. He suffered facial injuries and claimed to have sustained a brain injury. After Covington seeked criminal charges, Masivdal avoided jail time.
Sean Strickland reacted to the post on Instagram that depicted the friendship between Masvidal and Covington. He stated that he wasn't surpised by the fallout due to Covington's behaviour. 'Tarzan' wrote:
"From what I heard, Colby was a shady f*ck their entire friendship.....makes sense"
Michael Bisping believes UFC 296 will be Colby Covington's last title shot
Michael Bisping has claimed that Colby Covington's title about against Leon Edwards could be the last of his career.
'Chaos' has previously fought for the welterweight title twice, coming up short against Kamaru Usman on two occasions. He has since been out of the octagon for over a year following his win over Jorge Masvidal in 2022.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Bisping explained his reasoning, stating that Covington is now 35 years old and losing a third title opportunity could spell the end for his time at the top:
"Here’s what is going to make Colby Covington very, very dangerous come fight night. He’s (35) years old. This is his last title fight. It’s as simple as that. This will be his third time fighting for the belt."
'The Count' continued:
"Twice against Kamaru Usman, didn’t get the job done. Got stopped once, went to a decision the next time. Very competitive fights, though, very competitive fights but it doesn’t matter. He didn’t win. He didn’t become the champion."
Catch Bisping's comments here (1:30):