Last month, in the lead-up to the UFC’s latest stop in Sydney, Australia, former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum had a run-in with surging welterweight contender Colby Covington, during which Werdum ultimately threw a boomerang at Covington. Shortly thereafter, news surfaced that Covington planned to press charges against Werdum.
Unsurprisingly, Werdum – and many members of the testosterone soaked MMA community – felt that Covington had violated some kind of unspoken code by going to the police. In the opinion of Chael Sonnen, however, it was Werdum, not Covington, that violated a code.
Chael Sonnen gave his take on the Colby Covington – Fabricio Werdum beef on the latest BJ Penn Radio.
“Werdum comes out and he says, ‘Hey, we’re both fighters, we got a code amongst men. So what, something broke out between us, [but] we don’t press charges on one another.” That was [Werdum’s] argument. That argument’s not terrible. There is a code amongst the boys. [Sometimes] things do get a little heated, but you leave it amongst the boys.”
“However, [Werdum] wants to talk about honor?” Sonnen continued. “He threw a foreign object at [Covington]. We’re in the most wide open and reckless and dangerous sport there is. For years, people called it barbaric and then somehow that narrative changed. I don’t know how it changed. If fighting a man in a steel cage for the applause of a drunken audience and a paycheck isn’t barbaric, then I don’t know what is.”
“With as limited as rules as we have, you’re three weight classes separated from [Covington]. You’ve got a bunch of buddies with you. You approach him when he’s not ready and still, that’s not cowardly enough. You throw a foreign object. You throw a weapon at him and you hit him in the face? It was outlandish that he tried to say, ‘Hey, man, honor amongst the boys.’ What honor?”
“I’m a gangster and I wouldn’t hit anybody with a foreign object, because I don’t need to,” Sonnen concluded. “Colby shouldn’t let it slide. [Tony] Ferguson shouldn’t have let it slide [when Werdum confronted him]. He should’ve ankle picked him like he threatened to do. Werdum’s a rough son of a bitch, but that just adds to the point why he shouldn’t behave like that. Werdum can be a very intimidating guy inside the ring collecting a paycheck for a quarter million dollars. With guys his own size, he’s going to go up to a 55 pounder, he’s going to go up to a 70 pounder with friends, when they’re not prepared, and he’s got to bring a weapon, and he wants to complain that the code was broken? No man.”
What do you think of Chael Sonnen’s take on Fabricio Werdum’s beef with Colby Covington?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/12/2017.