Michael Chiesa thinks Colby Covington dropped the ball by not fighting him.
Chiesa (17-7 MMA, 12-7 UFC) called out Covington (17-5 MMA, 12-5 UFC) after submitting Tony Ferguson at UFC on ABC 7 last August. Both served as assistant coaches for Season 33 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” and the idea of them potentially fighting picked up some steam after coaches Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen suggested they square off after the filming of the show.
As Chiesa expected, Covington shut that idea down. However, Chiesa says that’s not exactly how things went down behind the scenes.
“To me, it was a no-brainer,” Chiesa told MMA on Sirius XM on fighting Covington. “Being on ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ Colby kind of no-sold me. When the cameras were around, he wouldn’t even look my direction. We had a couple interactions off camera that were genuine, and I’ll never forget this. When we were wrapping up the fights, semifinals are done, I go back in the locker room, I’m shaking all the coaches’ hands on Chael’s team.
“I see Colby and I’m like, ‘Hey, good season. If you want to do it, let’s scrap.’ He was like, ‘Absolutely, if that’s what the bosses want, then I’ll do it. Just know that anything I said or did, it’s a lot of respect.’ I’m like, OK, whatever. I know what’s coming. He’ll probably put out some interview saying some sh*t and of course he did.”
Covington is 2-4 in his past six fights, most recently suffering a doctor’s stoppage TKO loss to Joaquin Buckley in the UFC on ESPN 63 main event. Chiesa thinks Covington is no longer dedicated, and only targeting the upper echelon of the division will likely lead to his demise.
“At the end of the day, I think that he screwed up a really good opportunity,” Chiesa said. “I’m hearing the stories of how he handles his fighting career at this point in time. He has said it himself, streamers make more money than fighters. I think he’s aspiring to be a streamer more than he is a fighter. I know that he doesn’t train the way he used to because I’m talking to people that train at MMA Masters, and it’s like you want to fight for the title, you only want to fight ranked guys. Buddy, if you’re training the way that I’m hearing you’re training, it’s only going to get worse.
“So why didn’t you take the opportunity to fight me, in a main event, against a guy who worst-case scenario is just going to snatch your neck and choke you? Now Colby just fumbled a situation where he’s probably going to have to fight a Michael Morales, he’s going to have to fight a guy that’s going to do what Joaquin Buckley did to him. So to me, he fumbled a great opportunity for us to do a fight for ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ for these fighters. I thought it would have been a lot of fun. But at this point in time, I’m going to let it go. Colby is on his way out. He can do what he wants to do.”
Chiesa has already moved on. He takes on fellow “TUF” winner Court McGee (23-13 MMA, 11-12 UFC) at UFC on ESPN 69, which takes place June 14 from State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
