Bisping Discusses Covington Interview
After a heated exchange between new interim UFC welterweight champion Colby Covington and former UFC middleweight champion and Fox Sports analyst Michael Bisping, Bisping believes that he was in the right to call out Covington.
On his Believe You Me podcast, Bisping feels he was in the right to call Covington a p***k, but feels he should have been less abrasive off the bat.
“He came right hot out of the gate,” Bisping said. ”I get it, the guy’s charged and he’s kind of made a career out of being controversial and what-not. Maybe if I could do it again I’d calm down, I‘d bring it down just a notch but the first thing he said was ‘Hey, I’ve got all my haters in one spot. Blah blah blah.’ So I said, hold on a minute, just listen, we actually gave you a lot of compliments. . .
“Colby Covington, he’s Mr. controversy. Everywhere he goes he tries to create controversy. For crying out loud, he Tweets out spoilers to the new Star Wars movies and things like that. So when he came on, the first thing he did was, ‘f**k you guys up there on the panel. Kiss my a**, you all picked me to lose!’ So I thought, okay here we go, we’ve got Colby Covington in rare form – this is what he likes to do – so I thought maybe I’d be a sparring partner for him.
“I wasn’t offended by anything that he said. . . I thought if Colby wants to have a Colby-esque moment and create drama and controversy then I’ll be a sparring partner with him. I gave it back to him a little bit.“
“Giving it back” to the controversial new champion would draw Bisping some criticism, mainly from UFC play-by-play analyst, Jon Anik. Anik would lambaste Bisping over how he handed the situation on social media.
Anik would later apologize to Bisping, and Bisping would take the apology at face value.“We all have different styles,” Bisping joked. ”Jon obviously wouldn’t do that – and I love Jon, don’t get me wrong, I‘m having a bit of fun here – but we’ve got different styles. Jon wouldn’t have done that and I wouldn’t go to social media to berate a colleague. We’ve all just got different styles.”
Bisping would admit the comments “stung a little bit” and wish that Anik would have gone about his criticism a different way.
B ”If you’ve got a problem, maybe just shoot me a text, maybe give me some advice,” Bisping said on his podcast. “Maybe say, ‘Yo Mike, just giving you some advice as a friend. When you’re in that position, try and separate yourself as a fighter.’ Maybe try and guide me along. Don’t say, ‘Hey, I’m hoping this motherf**ker gets fired. He definitely needs to be reprimanded by Fox and this is disgraceful and he should be ashamed.’
“There’s no beef. I respect Jon greatly. I respect him as a commentator, I respect him as a professional, and as a person. I truly do, I’m just having a bit of fun with it. He said it, he apologized, whatever. I couldn’t care less. I’m not in the habit of trying to make enemies. I’m trying to make friends and not hold grudges against people for a silly little Tweet.“
Initial Report: MMA Fighting