Josh Thomson believes Colby Covington has never been the same fighter since parting ways with American Top Team. Covington split with his longtime gym in 2020 after multiple rifts with then-teammates Jorge Masvidal and Dustin Poirier . Covington (17-5 MMA, 12-5 UFC) has since been training at MMA Masters, but his coaches, Daniel Valverde and Cesar Carneiro, were not in his corner this past Saturday as he suffered a third-round doctor stoppage TKO loss to Joaquin Buckley in the UFC on ESPN 63 headliner at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla. Thomson believes Covington is no longer getting high-level training and that his recent performances have reflected that. “I’m not going to take anything away from Joaquin Buckley,” Thomson said on his “Weighing-In” podcast, “but when you train at a prestigious gym like American Top Team, and you’ve found your way out of it, and now you’re running your own camp and doing your own thing in a smaller facility without a whole lot of people to train with that are at the top level, when you just left the gym that had a plethora of world-class fighters there – you saw it (at UFC on ESPN 63).
Josh Thomson says Michael Chandler beating Conor McGregor won’t be impressive: ‘It’s not a high-level fight’
April 1, 2024
PFL vs. Bellator broadcast team set: Chael Sonnen, Josh Thomson, Jonathan Coachman, more
February 13, 2024
Josh Thomson, John McCarthy weigh in on Kayla Harrison’s UFC signing: ‘She went where the easier fights are’
January 26, 2024
Josh Thomson: Justin Gaethje ‘hardest fight’ for UFC champ Islam Makhachev right now
December 12, 2023
Josh Thomson: Khamzat Chimaev has ‘a lot of great gifts. Fight IQ is not one of them.’
September 12, 2022
Josh Thomson: Justice system failed Cain Velasquez, ‘breaks my heart to see him have to go through this’
April 18, 2022
Josh Thomson questions why Aljamain Sterling didn’t go after Dana White like he did John McCarthy
April 15, 2022
Bellator 277 preview with Josh Thomson: Will A.J. McKee keep rolling? Or will Patricio Freire even things up?
April 14, 2022
Bellator’s Josh Thomson, John McCarthy weigh pros, cons of potential Yoel Romero signing
December 6, 2020
Bellator’s Josh Thomson, John McCarthy list pros and cons of potential Yoel Romero signing
December 6, 2020
Josh Thomson pitches Gilbert Melendez tetralogy in Bellator to resolve ‘unsettled business’
November 20, 2019
Watch MMAjunkie Radio here (1 p.m. ET) with Josh Thomson, Andre Harrison
September 28, 2018