Alexandre
Pantoja doesn’t have a high opinion of former American Top Team
training partner Colby
Covington.
Advertisement
Covington will challenge Leon
Edwards for the welterweight crown in the UFC 296 main event,
while Pantoja will defend his flyweight strap against Brandon
Royval in the evening’s co-headliner on Dec. 16 at the T-Mobile
Arena in Las Vegas.
Pantoja recently revealed on MMAFighting’s
Trocação Franca podcast that he wants to have nothing to do
with Covington during fight week and would rather like to meet
Edwards, whose story he relates to and respects.
“I don’t care,” Pantoja said. “I was born in Copacabana and we are
disgusting towards everybody [laughs]. There’s an artist right next
to you and you don’t care. I respect him a lot as an athlete, but
in a way I’m more connected to Leon
Edwards because of his life story and everything he’s done.
Leon
Edwards is definitely someone I would go out of my way to shake
hands and wish him a good fight, say I’m a big fan his work. Now,
about that a—hole, I won’t say anything. Leave him alone
[laughs].”
A part of ATT since 2011, Covington exited the gym in 2020
following a series of public feuds with high-profile teammates such
as Jorge
Masvidal, Dustin
Poirier and Joanna
Jedrzejczyk. Pantoja believes Covington left because he wanted
to be the center of attention in a gym that runs on a team-first
philosophy.
“[Covington] moved to a team where he thinks he’ll get all the
attention, but I think MMA is not about that,” he said. “Even
though we’re fighting alone in there, there’s a great team behind
us. [At ATT] you’re just another one training, but I think Colby
couldn’t handle being just another one. He wanted all the attention
but he wouldn’t get that here.
“American Top Team owner always tells [coach Marcos] Parrumpa that
he likes my attitude in the gym because I’m always open to training
with every training partner. I was just helping Kayla
Harrison and the session was awesome, you know? I like helping
everybody because I get so much help too. [Parrumpa] says Dan
Lambert was very emotional when I won the belt because of that
exact reason, because I dedicate to help my teammates as well.
Colby can’t do that. He wants to be the main person all the time,
and that wouldn’t be possible at American Top Team.”