Justin Gaethje blasts 'fake' Colby Covington but admits 'he'd probably beat me' in cagefight
Justin Gaethje doesn’t like Colby Covington, but was honest in his assessment of him as a fighter.
Gaethje is not a fan of Covington’s persona, which has gained him plenty of popularity in his rise up the welterweight rankings. Covington challenged Gaethje’s teammate, UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman twice, but fell short both times in valiant efforts.
In his sole proper encounter with Covington during a Donald Trump rally in September 2020, Gaethje (23-3 MMA, 6-3 UFC) initially had a good impression of Covington, but that eventually changed.
“I would love to punch a hole in that motherf*cker’s face,” Gaethje said on the “FULL SEND PODCAST.” “So you have respect for how fake one can be? I don’t like him. He talked about Kamaru’s family a lot. He was around me one day, we went to a Trump rally and he was respectful, like you say and right when we left he got on the internet and starts talking sh*t.
“So I don’t respect that. If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face and it’s just fake. He’s trying to bring attention to himself and I get it, like, I make money with my fighting, he makes money with his mouth. If he wanted to make money off fighting, he’d be a broke motherf*cker.”
Gaethje has never held back when addressing how he feels about Covington (17-3 MMA, 12-3 UFC) as a person, but when asked about how a potential fight with the former multiple-time title challenger would go, Gaethje was honest in his response.
“I think he’s a great fighter, but he sucks to watch,” Gaethje said. “If I fought him in the cage, he’d probably beat me because of his size and his ability to move forward and his ability to grapple. But in a street fight, there’s no f*cking chance.
“Because in a street fight I’d grab a f*cking brick and hit him in the head. Can’t do that in this sport. There’s rules here. You got rules in this sport, and in the street there is no such thing as rules. I think the only rule is don’t hit somebody from the back, so I’m definitely on his side when it comes to what happened with Masvidal. I think that was a b*tch move, but I like Masvidal more.”
Gaethje will get another crack at undisputed gold when he challenges Charles Oliveira in Saturday’s UFC 274 main event at Footprint Center in Phoenix. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on ESPN+.