Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal were once close friends before their relationship soured and the pair spent years trading barbs in interviews. On Saturday night, the pair met in the main event of UFC 272 from Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena, with Covington grinding his way to a wide unanimous decision win by scores of 49-46, 50-44 and 50-45.
Masvidal opened the fight with a wild flying kick, but both men quickly slowed their pace into a more tactical approach before Masvidal landed leg kicks that appeared to bother Covington, leading to a takedown attack as Masvidal complained of an eye poke.
While Masvidal continued fighting off the takedown attempts, Covington slowly worked to continue dragging him down, eventually taking the back and working into dominant positions. Masvidal got his offense going in a more positive direction in the second round, landing some solid kicks and opening a cut near Covington’s eye with a sharp elbow. Covington, meanwhile, remained committed to a grappling attack, using his striking to close distance in pursuit of initiating clinches.
The takedown came much easier for Covington in Round 3, planting Masvidal along the cage with a double-leg. That set up the round for Covington to dominate nearly every second of the five-minute frame with ground and pound. The work of Covington in the third round carried over into the early part of Round 4, clearly sapping the energy of Masvidal.
Still, Masvidal landed a crushing right hand that caused Covington to stumble backward and briefly take a knee.
Unfortunately for Masvidal, he didn’t have the gas left in the tank to follow up after scoring the biggest single shot of the fight and Covington was able to recover before the round came to a close.
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Covington sucked the drama out of the final round by blitzing forward and taking Masvidal down. Once he’d grabbed ahold of Masvidal’s body, Covington did not let go, smothering every attempt by Masvidal to get the fight back to the feet and simply grinding away the seconds to get to the scorecards.
It wasn’t the emphatic ending many would like to see from such a heavily hyped grudge match, and after the scorecards were read, a dejected Masvidal was forced to admit that his wrestling “wasn’t on point.”
Covington refused to discuss the fight in his brief post-fight interview. Instead, he turned his attention to his next desired grudge match. Knowing that, like Masvidal, he’d already suffered two losses to current welterweight champion Kamaru Usman, Covington called out a former interim lightweight champ.
“I just took care of Miami street trash now it’s time to take care of Louisiana swamp trash,” Covington said. “Where you at, Dustin Poirier? You said it’s on sight. Name the site, Dustin. … You’re next.”
Elsewhere on the card, Rafael dos Anjos pieced up Renato Moicano over five grueling rounds despite a late rally in the fifth from Moicano. Dos Anjos battered his fellow Brazilian so much that the doctor was called in twice to check on Moicano’s eye before allowing the fight to continue. Plus, Bryce Mitchell dominated Edson Barboza over 15 minutes to earn his biggest win to date at featherweight.
CBS Sports was with you the entire way on Saturday bringing you all the results and highlights from the UFC 272 below.
UFC 272 card and results
- Colby Covington def. Jorge Masvidal via unanimous decision (49-46, 50-44, 50-45)
- Rafael dos Anjos vs. Renato Moicano via unanimous decision (49-45, 49-44, 50-44)
- Bryce Mitchell def. Edson Barboza via unanimous decision (30-25, 30-26, 30-27)
- Kevin Holland def. Alex Oliveira via second-round TKO (punches)
- Serghei Spivac def. Greg Hardy via first-round TKO (punches)
- Jalin Turner def. Jamie Mullarkey via second-round TKO (punches)
- Marina Rodriguez def. Yan Xiaonan via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
- Nicolae Negumereanu def. Kennedy Nzechukwu via split decision (29-27, 27-29, 29-27)
- Maryna Moroz def. Mariya Agapova via second-round submission (head and arm choke)
- Umar Nurmagomedov def. Brian Kelleher via first-round submission (rear naked choke)
- Tim Elliott def. Tagir Ulanbekov via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
- L’udovit Klein def. Devonte Smith via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
- Dustin Jacoby def. Michal Oleksiejczuk via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
