Colby Covington Takes Congratulatory Call from Donald Trump, Calls Out Jorge Masvidal

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Colby Covington had a night to remember on Saturday, when he vanquished rival Tyron Woodley via fifth-round technical knockout in the UFC Fight Night 178 headliner at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

Woodley suffered a rib injury 1:19 into Round 5, bringing an anticlimactic end to a bitter rivalry between former American Top Team members.

“He was done,” Covington said at the UFC Fight Night 178 post-fight press conference. “I broke him. In the third round I broke him. He quit. I put vicious ground and pound. He was done. He told his coach he was done and he was looking for a way out. He knew I trapped his arm and I was getting ready to put vicious ground-and-pound on him and he took the easy way out. He would rather be the spineless coward like he is. He’s a woke little f—k and he got exposed tonight.”

While conducting an interview on the ESPN+ post-fight show, Covington took a congratulatory phone call from United States President Donald Trump. Covington recently attended Trump’s rally in Henderson, Nevada, and previously visited the White House after winning the UFC interim welterweight title in 2018. Covington put Trump on speakerphone so those watching the post-fight show could hear the call.

“You are a great fighter,” Trump said to Covington. “You make it look so easy. I don’t know how you do it. Congratulations, I wanted to watch that fight tonight. You were great.

“That was easy work, relatively easy work. I’m proud of you, man” Trump added. “I just made a big speech, I had 35,000 people, I said I want to get home now to watch Colby. That was fast work.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. President,” said Covington, who vowed to bring the UFC belt to the White House in the future. “You gave me the dragon energy when you shook my hand on Sunday at your rally. It doesn’t matter if King Kong was in front of me, I was not going to lose after getting to shake your hand.”

President Trump called @ColbyCovMMA during the #UFCVegas11 post show pic.twitter.com/FJsUMQV8Xk

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) September 20, 2020

With his latest victory, Covington rebounded from a fifth-round TKO loss to Kamaru Usman in a title bout at UFC 245 this past December. A rematch with Usman isn’t next on Covington’s hit list, however.

“Where’s Jorge Masvidal at?” Covington said at the Saturday’s press conference. “He needs to come see me for all the talking he’s done. Come see if can walk the walk. I talk the talk and I walk the walk. I want to see Jorge Masvidal in that octagon. … I want the best friends turned enemy fight with ‘Street Judas’ Jorge Masvidal.

“He’s been talking all that talk reckless. He used to talk at the old gym, ‘I’m going to beat your ass, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.’ OK. Let’s see it. Come see me in the octagon then. He’s going after that California soy-boy Nate Diaz because he’s going after easy fights. I’m going to expose him like I did Tyron Woodley tonight.”

Like Woodley, Masvidal is a former training partner of Covington’s at American Top Team. It’s unclear if Covington vs. Masvidal will come to fruition, because the promotion is reportedly targeting a rematch between “Gamebred” and Diaz in early 2020.