Colby Covington no-selling me, hard to say if we fight

Michael Chiesa still wants to fight Colby Covington, but isn’t sure the interest is reciprocated.

Both Covington (17-5 MMA, 12-5 UFC) and Chiesa (17-7 MMA, 12-7 UFC) are serving as assistant coaches for Season 33 of “The Ultimate Fighter” – with Covington on Team Chael Sonnen, and “TUF 15” winner Chiesa on Team Daniel Cormier.

Cormier and Sonnen suggested that Covington and Chiesa fight after the airing of the show, but Covington has since taken the opportunity to trash Chiesa.

“It’s hard to say (if it will happen),” Chiesa told MMA Junkie. “Colby kind of keeps to himself. It would be hard to be at – if it’s a zero out of 10 in terms of the ‘Chaos’ side of Colby Covington, it’s hard to be at a 10 all the time. There was some interactions (between us) – a lot of them off-camera.

“But I’m sure they interviewed him and asked for his opinion about me, and they did the same for me. That’s all I can say. I don’t know what’s going to come of it. I expressed interest in fighting Colby for years. I know it’s a tough fight. It’s a really, really hard fight, honestly. Stylistically it’s a very tough matchup for me.”

Chiesa’s desire to fight Covington is not about “The Ultimate Fighter.” Outside of previously calling him out, Chiesa shared an interesting story that has linked him to Covington for years.

“There’s always been this weird history between him and I that he didn’t even know about,” Chiesa said. “My high school wrestling coach was his college coach’s brother. Once Colby and I got in the UFC, Dusty, my coach, would be like, ‘I think my guy can whoop your guy’s ass.’ That’s when it started. And this was before Colby became Colby ‘Chaos’ Covington. He was a lot more humble. He didn’t speak as much. He wasn’t this outgoing guy yet.

“At that time, I was at ’55. Then I went up to ’70 and obviously once you start winning fights, you’re calling for the bigger ones so you can make your way up the ladder. That’s a fight I would always take. If it was ever offered to me, I’m going to say yes at the drop of a hat. We’ll see what happens. I don’t have a fight scheduled yet. I know I need to have a conversation with Sean (Shelby) and the team about what the plan is, what we’re going to do. I’m interested. I want to hear what he says about me on ‘TUF.’ He’s no-selling me. I’m interested to see what he says.”

Covington was recently asked about his interest in fighting Chiesa in an interview with Submission Radio, which he immediately shut down.

“Another irrelevant bum who got submitted by Kevin Lee,” Covington said. “The only reason he has any type of hype is because Kevin Lee made his mom famous. So, there’s just no interest there. He’s a nobody. He’s a bum. But you know what? He was a great example for the Sonnen system and for Team Sonnen. We were able to tell these fighters that this is the perfect representation of what you don’t want to do when you win ‘The Ultimate Fighter.’

“Don’t be a Michael Chiesa. Don’t become a irrelevant bum who rides other people’s meat for a form of transportation, and I’m talking about him riding DC’s (Cormier) meat for transportation to try and get a big fight with me. He’s just not a big fight, and he doesn’t do any business for the company. So, they’ve never offered me the fight, and I know that’s not going to interest the UFC. So, I want to do what’s in the best interest of the UFC.”