UFC welterweight contender Colby Covington detailed why he is no longer interested in fighting his former friend and rival Jorge Masvidal.

Covington and Masvidal were former teammates at American Top Team, but for the last few years, they have been bitter rivals. For whatever reason, however, the fight between these two has not been booked yet. Even though it seemed like the perfect TUF coaches’ matchup, the UFC chose to go in another direction. It seems as though not only is this fight not going to happen during the TUF format, but in general.

Speaking to MMAjunkie.com, Covington explained why he’s moved on from Masvidal.

“It doesn’t make sense. I’m not gonna have people downplay my victory if I beat him. I’ve already owned his soul for the last 10 years when we trained together at American Top Team. You can go look on the internet, I used to hold him down in our kitchen and just pat on his face, ‘Get up Masvidal, get up, do something,’ and he couldn’t do anything. So he knows I’m his daddy, I’m his rightful owner, and there’s a reason he ducked the fight for so long. He doesn’t want to fight me,” Covington said.

“He knows I own the keys to his soul, so I don’t know. If the UFC really wants to do it, I’m the people’s champ, and I’m America’s champ for a reason. I’ll do what the people want, what the UFC want. I want to put the biggest and best fights in the organization, but I don’t feel like he’s the biggest and best fight in the organization. The guy has almost 20 losses on his record, he’s nothing more than a journeyman at this point, so his 10 seconds of fame are up, and there’s nothing for me to gain anymore.”

Do you think we will eventually see Colby Covington fight Jorge Masvidal in the UFC?