American Top Team owner Dan Lambert – who infamously kicked Colby Covington out of the gym – is taking credit for inventing Covington’s controversial “heel” persona. Lambert told The MMA Hour that he helped Colby develop this character, possibly to invigorate Colby’s flagging career.
“I may have put an ingredient or two into the early mix of what you see now, I didn’t think Dr. Frankenstein was going to come along and add every other ingredient in the world to it and make it blow up the way it blew up.
Dan Lambert Takes Credit for Inventing Colby Covington Persona
It’s one thing s******* on a particular country or a particular guy to get under people’s skins and to get yourself noticed, it’s another thing to take it to the next level and s*** on every single person in the entire sport and everybody in every other sport. Men and women and people in different weight classes and then people in your own gym.
If I had seen it going down that direction and knew then what I know now about what a distraction it would be for our gym, I probably would have tried to insert myself a little differently into that equation.”
Lambert went on to say that he regretted not intervening sooner before Covington made things at ATT unworkable. Colby infamously butted heads repeatedly with teammates Dustin Poirier and Jorge Masvidal. In the case of the latter, Covington burned a relationship with his supposed “best friend”, and the pair are now due to face off at UFC 272.
“If the story had gone the way it looked like it was gonna go and he had one fight left and then was gonna be unemployed and looking to go fight somewhere else versus what he’s accomplished and the money he’s made and the notoriety he’s gained, positively or negatively, I think it worked out pretty damn well for Colby.
So I think some of the initial advice that I may have given him was probably sound advice at the time. […] It got uncomfortable when it started being directed at other people in our gym […]
Inside the gym, we’re not American, Brazilian, this, that, we’re just American Top Team. It’s your team. And that was easy, that was an easy sell.
Once stuff started getting directed at Masvidal and Dustin and Joanna and it started becoming internal, that’s when it got uncomfortable and it got uncomfortable quick. You need to be able to walk into your gym and that’s got to be your safe spot. That’s gotta be a comfortable zone where everybody’s there to help each other and when it gets the other way it became a distraction pretty quick.”
Is Colby’s persona working out as well as Dan Lambert thinks it is, or will it eventually blow up in his face? Let us know what you think in the comments.
