He’s back! The last we heard from UFC superstar Jorge Masvidal, he was forced to pull out of his upcoming fight with Leon Edwards in December. Now that we’re through the holidays and into the new year, it looks like Masvidal is ready to go again, as he had a fight surprisingly announced on Tuesday.
ESPN’s Brett Okamoto announced that Masvidal will take on bitter rival Colby Covington in March!
Let's have some fun. Jorge Masvidal (@GamebredFighter) vs. Colby Covington (@ColbyCovMMA) will headline UFC 272 on March 5, per UFC Chief Business Officer Hunter Campbell. Five rounds, Las Vegas. Can not WAIT. https://t.co/URQfa6FEMm
— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) January 11, 2022
The shocking news came today that we will see the two headlining the UFC 272 card on March 5 in Las Vegas. This comes as the UFC shuffles things around, as just recently they had announced two title fights for UFC 272 with Max Holloway vs. Alexander Volkanovski and Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan. Holloway was forced to pull out of their fight, but it appears Volkanovski is looking to still fight, however these fights look like they’ll be pushed to UFC 273 now.
The Bad Blood Between The Two
The story behind Masvidal and Covington is a real friends-turned-enemies story. Both men used to train at MMA’s top gym, American Top Team (ATT) in south Florida for years. They were teammates and often trained together since they fought in the same division (although Masvidal used to fight at lightweight before eventually moving to welterweight).
Covington, however, soon became the most controversial figure in MMA. Aligning himself with Donald Trump and aiming to become the biggest troll figure he could, Covington’s only goal was to piss as many people off as possible. He went full WWE heal with it. Many, in fact, have credited Covington as being the first person to blatantly be playing a character in pro wrestling fashion in a real life fighting sport such as MMA. He truly began to blur the lines between MMA and professional wrestling.
It wasn’t the alliance to Trump that drew Masvidal away, however, as Masvidal is quite the outspoken Trump supporter himself. The story isn’t exactly clear, but the general understanding is that many within the ATT gym began to become frustrated with Covington as his attitude seemed to change with his growing fame and rising contender status. Perhaps he didn’t know when to stop acting like the bad guy and it began to actually bleed into real life.
Covington officially left ATT in 2020, according to Okamoto, but still trains in the south Florida area. Masvidal is a Miami native and has lived in the area his entire life.
Rumors of this fight have been rumbling for about a year now. Instead, the two have been busy flip-flopping turns fighting for the welterweight championship against Kamaru Usman. In fact, Usman has fought, and beat, both Masvidal and Covington twice each!
Masvidal first met Usman at Fight Island at UFC 251, and then again at UFC 261 where Usman landed the knockout of the year on Masvidal. Covington first met Usman at UFC 245 in what was one of the most exciting title fights of all time. The two finally met again at UFC 268 (in what was my most antiquated fight of the whole year). Usman would of course win all four of these meetings.
So now, finally, the two top welterweight contenders will face off in an ultimate grudge match where the winner will look to get one step closer yet again to another shot at a title fight.
If you don’t think things are intense and serious here, Covington texted Okamoto “he better fucking show up” after the news broke. Contract have not officially been signed yet, but are deals are close.
This will be a rare PPV headlined by a non-title fight (other than Conor McGregor PPVs), but it is the perfect fight to do so! Fitting that the fight to declare who the BMF of Miami (the 305) will be held on 3/05…
