Colby Covington dominates rival Jorge Masivadal in 5 rounds

The storied rivalry between ex teammates turned bitter rivals came to an end on Saturday night as Colby Covington out grappled Jorge Masivadal. Covington was able to control the pace of the fight and turn it into a five round wrestling exhibition. Masvidal showed some grit being able to survive storms and even landed some huge shots along the way but it was no match for Covington’s workman-like fight rate. Covington won by a wide unanimous decision by scores of 49-46, 50-44 and 50-45.

Covington sucked the drama out of the grudge match by blitzing forward and taking Masvidal down. Once he'd grabbed hold of Masvidal's body, Covington did not let go, smothering every attempt by Masvidal to get the fight back to the feet and simply grinding away the seconds of pivotal moments.

The two men still hate each other long after the fight. The trash talk lasted even after the final bell rang and both men had to be fended off by security in the ring. The ever brash Covington called out Dustin Poirer for his next fight even talking about Poirers’ wife. “I just took care of Miami street trash,” Covington said. “Now it's time to take care of Louisiana swamp trash. Where you at Dustin Poirier?” Poirer is another former training partner of Covington turned rival. That now seems to be a theme in most of Covington’s fights is fighting former training partners.

As for Masvidal he credited Covingtons wrestling ability and also took blame in saying he came out flat footed and it affected his ability to wrestle and he didn’t score enough big moments to derail Covington’s confidence. Fighting Covington is never an easy feat. He may talk a lot of trash but he backs it up in the octagon. As we put UFC 272 behind us it won’t be remembered as one of the greatest grudge match fights in the sport, but it did prove that the top-ranked Covington is leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else in the division except for champion Kamaru Usman.