The worst thing about betrayal, as they say, is that it never comes from an enemy. And that was the case for Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal, who were once teammates and best of friends, only to become sworn enemies later. The feud between the two UFC superstars began in early 2022, in the lead-up to their UFC 272 welterweight clash.

In the build-up to the scrap, Covington, who plays a loud-mouthed and disrespectful character to hype up his fights, took many personal shots at ‘Gamebred’, including laying into him for essentially being a ‘deadbeat dad’. Eventually, this would lead to an extremely ugly incident between the two, which led to a twenty-month legal battle. In this article, we take a look at this incident and its legal fallout for Masvidal.

How did the Masvidal-Covington court case start?

After a contentious build-up, Masvidal and Covington went to war in a ‘Fight of the Night’ winning main event clash at UFC 272. At the end of the sanctioned five rounds, Covington walked away victorious with a unanimous decision victory. But the feud was not over, at least not for Masvidal.

Two weeks later, ‘Gamebred’ would allegedly attack Covington outside a restaurant in Miami, which, ‘Chaos’ claimed led to him suffering a chipped tooth, brain damage, and his Rolex watch being broken. Covington claimed that he was approached by Masvidal with a surgical mask on, who punched him in the face and told him, “You shouldn’t have been talking about my kids.”

Covington, fearing for his life, fled back into the restaurant and filed a police complaint against Masvidal. The former BMF champ turned himself in shortly after and was held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami for a day before being released. The Cuban-American was charged with two counts of felony aggravated battery and criminal mischief for the assault. After a series of delays, the case went to trial in November 2022. The trial, however, didn’t go as Covington was hoping.

Jorge Masvidal pleads no contest in the Colby Covington court case

Colby Covington must have been hoping for some jail time for Masvidal for the cowardly assault. After all, trash talk is part of the game, even the one that crosses the line sometimes. And ‘Gamebred’ did have the opportunity to get even with Covington in their UFC 272 clash. But he lost, and decided to take the coward’s way out to get even with ‘Chaos’.

But assaulting Covington was not the right thing to do since it is illegal. However, Masvidal got off with essentially a slap on his wrist in the end. His felony charges were dropped and Masvidal pleaded no contest to the charges because of a supposed deal he cut with the prosecution.

The judge sentenced Masvidal to a lenient time served and court charges, and ‘Gamebred’ was able to avoid any actual jail time. The official verdict says that Masvidal was found guilty, which means ‘Chaos’ at least had a moral win, even if Covington must have been disappointed that his former friend didn’t get any serious consequences for assaulting him. What do you think about the whole Colby Covington- Jorge Masvidal feud?