Tag: Dan Lambert

American Top Team founder Dan Lambert says the team began to turn against Colby Covington following his infamous roast of Brazil.

Covington’s shift from relatively unknown welterweight fighter to a professional wrestling-like heel occurred following his win over Demian Maia at UFC Sao Paulo in 2017. After earning a dominant unanimous decision victory, Covington used his post-fight interview to call out the Brazilian crowd as “filthy animals” during his Octagon chat with Daniel Cormier.

Covington had to be escorted out of the arena by groups of security personnel following the post-fight interview. Covington put a target on his back with his comments, including callouts from Belal Muhammad and Warlley Alves.

During a recent interview with ESPN’s Marc Raimondi, Lambert explained how Covington’s post-fight comments about Brazil impacted the training environment at ATT.

“Yeah, we had blowback immediately at the gym from some of those comments,” Lambert said of Covington. “Colby had never really caused much of a problem for other fighters at the gym leading up to that point. We obviously have a Brazilian presence at our gym with some other fighters and some coaches. I think most of them saw it for exactly what it was—just him trying to promote himself, but it’s not just how you see things in this business. These guys (Brazilians at ATT) are opening up their Instagram accounts and they’re getting direct messages from a million people in Brazil saying, ‘What are you doing you piece of [MUTED]? You’re gonna train this guy? You’re gonna work with this guy? You better step up and represent our country! What are you doing?’ So, they felt pressured.

As tensions escalated between Covington and his now-former Brazilian teammates, Lambert explained how he needed to hold a meeting to bring the team back together and have everyone on the same page.

“Basically, we just had a meeting at the gym, sat everybody down, and said, ‘Hey man, this is American Top Team here. I don’t care where you’re from or who you are. When you’re inside this gym, you’re here to do your job, and we’re a team. If anybody has an issue outside of the gym, or something somebody’s doing outside of the gym, that’s fine. But it stays outside the gym. Nobody’s too big to be asked to leave this gym.’ I think everybody brought into it and everybody understood it at the time.”

Covington has since doubled down on his previous Brazil comments and isn’t apologetic for the post-fight interview. Covington will face former ATT teammate turned bitter rival Jorge Masvidal this weekend in the UFC 272 main event.

Did Colby Covington go too far with his Brazil comments?

American Top Team (ATT) founder Dan Lambert has recalled the moment that led to welterweight star Colby Covington chasing his persona, seemingly confirming a story that Jorge Masvidal recently disputed.

This weekend, Covington will lock horns with former friend and teammate Masvidal. In the lead-up to the fight, insults have been thrown and animosity has been high, something that will likely become more and more prominent as fight week rolls on.

But this hasn’t always been Covington.

One night changed it all—that night being UFC Fight Night: Brunson vs. Machida in October 2017. The event, held in São Paulo, Brazil, saw Covington make his ninth walk to the Octagon. But despite boasting a 7-1 promotional record and being on a four-fight win streak, “Chaos” was apparently facing the chopping block.

He altered his future with a collection of words that included: Brazil, dump, filthy, and animals.

Whether it was confirmed by Covington’s respectful interaction with Kamaru Usman following UFC 268 or long before, most in the MMA community acknowledge that Covington has developed a character that has brought him attention and headlines.

According to the founder of his former gym, ATT, which Covington was a part of until his first loss to Usman, it was either the character or free agency.

Lambert Says He Was Warned About Covington’s Likely Cut

During a recent interview with ESPN MMA’s Marc Raimondi, Lambert, who established ATT in 2001, harked back to the moment that forced Covington to change. According to him, that moment came in Singapore on June 17, 2017. On that night, “Chaos” comfortably defeated Dong Hyun Kim on the scorecards.

But while he left Asia with a victory over “Stun Gun” on his record, Covington also apparently left with a word of warning from matchmaker Sean Shelby, who’d alerted Lambert that the promotion wouldn’t look to re-sign the stylistically unappealing Covington following his next fight.

“Colby was a little bit of a problem for the UFC. Kinda like that Jon Fitch issue. He’s a guy who is going to beat just about everybody that he fights, but his style was not very exciting at the time,” said Lambert. “Case in point, he was fighting ‘Stun Gun’ in Singapore, who was obviously the favorite of the crowd, and he (Covington) went out and basically 30-26’d him. The crowd’s booing the whole time, which, for a crowd over there, is fairly rare; they’re a pretty respectful crowd. But it was not a very eventful fight.

“After the fight, Sean (Shelby) came up to me and basically said, ‘Hey man, he’s got one fight left on his contract. He’s beating guys we want to promote. Fans aren’t getting into him. If you wanna start looking for something else for him to do after his next fight, go ahead, cause we’re not gonna re-sign him,’” Lambert recalled.

Following that conversation, Lambert says he was quick to relay the message to his man, who began developing ideas on how to rescue his spot on the UFC roster.

“I went right to him in the locker room that night, right after I talked to Sean. I said, ‘Hey man, here’s what Sean told me. Obviously, we’re not gonna be able to change things overnight with the way you fight; your style is your style. But there’s other things you might be able to change.’ And I asked Sean if he could fight Demian Maia next in Brazil and he said yes,” continued Lambert. “That was a wake-up call. That was a slap to the face from Sean. Pretty Much that night he started thinking, ‘What can I do to set myself apart?”

Interestingly, Lambert’s narration supports Covington’s claim and directly goes against Masvidal. “Gamebred” recently accused his upcoming opponent of lying about the UFC’s threats to cut him.

Given that Masvidal was in Singapore to corner Covington for his fight against Kim, it is strange that Lambert and Masvidal have different versions of the same story. Either way, this is a contradiction between the two ATT allies that not many would have expected.

Jun17.2017

Colby Covington earns his 12th career win when he defeats Dong Hyun Kim.

As per Covington, the UFC wanted to cut him after this fight. This sparked the beginning of "Chaos"character. pic.twitter.com/1Nc7s3lVZm

— MMA History Today (@MMAHistoryToday) June 17, 2021

What do you make of the alterations Colby Covington has made to his persona since his 2017 victory over Dong Hyun Kim? Has he gone too far?