American Top Team made headlines in September following comments Colby Covington made towards fellow team members Dustin Poirier and Jorge Masvidal.
Before UFC 242, Covington — who notably trained with Poirier in the past — predicted a win for Khabib Nurmagomedov as part of a sponsored post. However, he did it while mocking Poirier.
That didn’t go down well with “The Diamond” who later called Covington a sellout and warned him that things would be on sight if they ever crossed paths again.
Adding to the drama was the beef between Covington and Masvidal. Former roommates and best friends, the pair soon took shots at each other. Covington, in particular, called “Gamebred” a journeyman as well as a “little bitch.”
Masvidal later threatened Covington as well if they were to meet at American Top Team. Such was the tension at the time that Covington even feared he may have to leave the gym. That wasn’t the case in the end with ATT owner Dan Lambert cooling things down.
However, many were not pleased with “Chaos” and all the things he said. Former UFC welterweight Hayder Hassan was one of them.
“Jorge has been my teammate for over ten years,” Hassan told The Body Lock’s John Hyon Ko. “Colby…maybe five years. I don’t endorse what Colby’s been doing.
“It’s kind of unfortunate because Colby’s my friend. But the stuff he did upset me, man. Really, the stuff that he did to Dustin. That really upset me the most. Dustin’s such a good dude. I thought it was really uncalled for. It upset a lot of guys on the team, really upset everybody.
“… Even Jorge, like they should fight. I love Jorge. Jorge is my dude, bro. … They train at different times. They try to keep them at the gym at different times to keep [from] any sort of confrontation or something happening. But at some point, they will cross paths. That’s real. Jorge hates Colby. Colby does not like Jorge.”
While Covington is kept away from the likes of Poirier and Masvidal at ATT, he will be bound to meet them at some point. But don’t expect him to throw down with either of them if that is the case.
“Colby’s not about that life,” Hassan added. “He will try to defuse it or try not to be there. Whereas Jorge is about that life and he will do something. That’s what caused Dan Lambert to get very nervous, upset. He didn’t know what to do. That’s why he was trying to call everybody, call Jorge, tell him don’t do anything. Call Colby, tell him don’t do anything. Call Dustin, tell him don’t do anything. It was a lot of micromanagement that he had to do.
“Unfortunate, man. Hopefully, Colby will beat [Kamaru] Usman. Jorge will fight Colby or Nick Diaz, that would be awesome. We’ll see what happens. But they should fight at some point. The way it’s going, it’ll be a good money fight. Drama sells, especially when it’s real drama — that shit works.”