This isn’t a Philly sports story but it’s so ridiculously stupid that I feel compelled and obligated to write about it, as Crossing Broad’s resident MMA guy:

Spoiler:

TMZ says Masvidal sucker punched Colby Covington, the UFC fighter and former teammate who easily handled Masvidal in the octagon a few weeks ago.

This is from the ESPN article:

The other person told police, after they responded at 10:55 p.m. ET, that he was attacked by Masvidal as he was walking away from the restaurant. According to the person, Masvidal ran up from the left and sucked-punched him twice. One punch was to his mouth and the other to his left eye. During the attack, the person said, Masvidal told him, “You shouldn’t have been talking about my kids.” Masvidal repeated a similar statement on social media.

The person suffered a fractured left tooth and an abrasion to his left wrist. Masvidal, according to the person’s account, was wearing a blue surgical mask and a hoodie that covered his head. He was able to identify Masvidal, he said, because of his trademark curly hair that flowed out of the hoodie in addition to his voice and the upper half of his face.

Masvidal is riding the rollercoaster out here. He was on top of the MMA world in 2019 after he scored three straight wins, all in impressive fashion. He knocked out Darren Till in London, scored the fastest KO ever with a flying knee that took out Ben Askren, and then battered Nate Diaz to claim the fake “BMF” belt that November. We’re talking about a journeyman who enjoyed a rebirth of sorts with some highlight-reel performances that turned him into a late-career fan favorite.


That segued into two losses against Welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and then a lopsided loss to Covington, so Masvidal has now taken three L’s in a row. He was the underdog in all three of those fights, but now the shine has worn off and he’s out here allegedly jumping a dude he couldn’t beat in the ring. Make no mistake, Colby Covington is an immense douche nozzle, but Masvidal had the opportunity to legally ragdoll him and came up pitifully short, so now we’ve got this:

Dude it doesn’t matter who was saying what. You can’t punch people in the face when they’re not looking (ALLEGEDLY). That doesn’t make you tough, that makes you also a douche nozzle.

This is all pretty disappointing because when guys do stuff like this it sheds a bad light on mixed martial arts. It’s like when Conor McGregor punched an old dude at a bar. Jon Jones and his various arrests, etc. There’s a lot of respect in the sport and a lot of good people who are honorable and competitive types, but then you get the brutish hoagie mouth stereotypes surfacing because these guys can’t control themselves outside of the octagon (ALLEGEDLY).

There’s only one direction to go from here: