Colby Covington‘s attempts to paint Dustin Poirier in a bad light via a “leaked” sparring video haven’t gone over so well among fans and fellow fighters.
Yesterday, Covington shared a video of Poirier knocking down teammate and Titan FC veteran Felipe Douglas in a sparring session. Douglas sits against the fence as he recovers, and Poirier walks around the cage and then yells out “And new!”
The guy wearing full nerf gear head to toe to protect his face and his feelings is Poirier. The guy with no headgear, wrestling credentials or brain cells left is “khabib.” @DustinPoirier Good guy? Bad guy? You be the judge👨⚖️ #AndNew #UFC264 pic.twitter.com/EMMFwC2b4E
— Colby Covington (@ColbyCovMMA) July 6, 2021
Covington has previously teased the release of the video on MMA Fighting’s What the Heck.
“I have video footage to show what type of person Dustin truly is. Everybody hypes him up to be some charitable guy, some nice guy on camera. Some nice guy off-side camera. Oh, he’s a family man. He has a kid. Yeah, his kid and his wife are props. He’s a fake piece of s***. The guy is a dirtbag. I have a video of him knocking out an amateur in the gym, and he’s celebrating, dancing around, yelling in the guy’s face,” said Covington.
Douglas, however, suggested that he harbored no ill will toward Poirier in an interview with MMA Fighting.
“It was an intense sparring session, and things like that can happen in sparring. There are some people saying I wasn’t wearing gear, but there was no reason to wear training gear, because Dustin trains well. He’s not mean. He hits hard like a fight and caught me and knocked me down. The cornerman took me off the cage and didn’t let me go back. As far as his celebration, people saying he was making fun… that’s the mindset of a guy that is fighting for a belt. I didn’t consider it disrespectful. I don’t do it, but that’s his mindset, envisioning the fight. He was about to fight for the belt. That’s his life.”
Other fighters, including fellow ATT athlete Jorge Masvidal, have chimed in to defend Poirier.
Anybody who thinks Dustin did anything wrong in the sparring video has never spent time in a gym before ha.
— ike vallie-flagg (@IKEVF) July 6, 2021
Why don’t you post the video of @DustinPoirier dropping you with a body shot? Always hating on people with power #supernecessary
— Jorge Masvidal UFC (@GamebredFighter) July 6, 2021
Though there was speculation that the sparring session in question was from Poirier’s camp prior to his title fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov, that claim has since been refuted.
Poirier, who fights this weekend in a highly anticipated trilogy bout against Conor McGregor at UFC 264, has commented only this on the situation:
This is a pro fighter with 20 wins https://t.co/0rEGN3bf53
— The Diamond (@DustinPoirier) July 6, 2021
