Colby Covington definitely isn't trying to make a bunch of friends in the MMA world right now. He has been turning on old teammates and even his old room-mate Masvidal. I don't really understand why he would try to beef with Poirier and Mcgregor though unless he has notions of going down a weight class to make some sort of super fight. There is also some reason to think that he wants to capitalize on the now vacant lightweight title. Mostly I think he is just doing it to maintain his bad boy with no friends persona and get as much publicity and therefore money as he can.
They were teammates back at American Top Team but that love doesn't seem to have carried into today as Covington is now the owner and operator of his own team at Colby Covington Incorporated, where he is the CEO.
The latest war of words between Covington and Poirier have to do with Dustin's charity called The Good Fight where the idea is that the donations to the foundation are meant to help children of poor families. Now I have no idea what they actually do, but Colby Covington claims that Poirier (who he refers to as "Soirier") is using the foundation as a front, is siphoning money from the foundation to enrich himself, and is also using the foundation as a tax write-off.
There is no evidence that any of this is true, but from what little I know about charitable foundations, it certainly could be. I don't think that is why Colby is doing this though, I think he is doing it because it keeps him in the spotlight and therefore makes and fights of his more marketable.
This entire idea is taken straight out of the McGregor playbook and it worked very well for him, so it is understandable that someone else would try the same tactics. Ironically, Covington, who is emulating basically the exact same media strategy as The Notorious One, refers to Conor as "Con-Man MgGregor."
I don't have any sympathy for McGregor getting picked on for his latest fall from grace that has resulted in him being in the number 5 spot in the lightweight division because well, you reap what you sow, as they say. I do, however, wonder what it is that Covington has set up in his future. He obviously wants to have another go at Kamaru Usman and according to Dana White's thoughts (it's not official) he is exactly the next person in line for that fight.
I would think that Covington would be focusing his ire on Usman, but instead he is reaching out across weight classes to attack people that, barring some sort of dramatic weight change, he isn't even a part of.
Covington is a beast in the octagon and I really hope he can put up a "Good Fight" when he faces Usman, presumably later this year. However, in the meantime I think that his lashing out at people he is very unlikely to fight is nothing more than public relations of the aggressive sort.
The man rarely has anything good to say about any other fighter. In fact, I can't recall a time that he ever did say anything nice about anyone in the past 2 years other than the ex-President. It could all be a ruse of course and I suspect there is probably a little bit of WWE in his marketing game plan. Covington knows that creating some controversy before, after, and even during a fight makes you a much more marketable fighter and I think he is playing all of us.
Does he really hate Poirier and McGregor? Or are they all on a Zoom call right now trying to figure out how they can keep the media talking about them in order to increase their collective paychecks? It honestly wouldn't surprise me if that were the case!