Colby Covington and Luke Rockhold face each other at RAF 5, but that doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t have time for a little teamwork.<\/p>\n
In this instance, the former UFC titleholders took aim at middleweight contender Bo Nickal at a pre-fight press conference for Saturday\u2019s wrestling event in Sunrise, Fla. Nickal also competes on the card, taking on Yoel Romero in the co-main event, and he made his presence known while Covington and Rockhold were on stage Thursday.<\/p>\n
His involvement was not appreciated.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, it\u2019s the type of bozos like this that just kill the sport of wrestling,\u201d Covington said. \u201cWe need stars. We need people that are willing to be vocal and call their shots.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Nickal offered to challenge Covington, the longtime welterweight veteran shut him down, referencing Nickal\u2019s loss to Reinier de Ridder, the first blemish of his young pro MMA career.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, that\u2019d be too easy, bro, you\u2019re a bum,\u201d Covington said. \u201cYou got broken by a Dutch kickboxer. You\u2019re a bum, dude. You\u2019re not even the main event, there\u2019s a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nickal bounced back with a head kick knockout of Rodolfo Vieira at UFC 322 to improve to 8-1 as a pro, but it\u2019s his pre-MMA accolades that earned him a spot on the RAF roster. In his storied career at Penn State, Nickal won three national titles before transitioning to a different combat sport.<\/p>\n
Following Covington\u2019s lead, Rockhold joined in, warning Nickal not to disrespect two fighters who have been competing in the octagon far longer than he has.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should make the top 10 before you start talking about a sport that built another sport,\u201d Rockhold said. \u201cThe reason why wrestling is here on this stage is because of MMA. You\u2019ve done absolutely nothing in the sport of MMA. You quit. You quit before the knee even hit you, Bo. So just button it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rockhold then suggested he and Nickal meet in a modified rules matchup and threatened Nickal, telling him, \u201cI will put you to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many world championships have I won?\u201d Rockhold said. \u201cWhat have you even done on a world stage? Absolutely nothing. You\u2019re a college bum. Shut up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colby Covington and Luke Rockhold face each other at RAF 5, but that doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-399291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}