Covington implies Black Lives Matter is a domestic terrorist group; Ortiz calls Woodley a ‘terrorist’

The bad blood simmering between Colby Covington and Tyron Woodley has spilled over into the political landscape. Shortly following the UFC Vegas 11 pre-fight…

By: Karim Zidan | 3 years ago
Covington implies Black Lives Matter is a domestic terrorist group; Ortiz calls Woodley a ‘terrorist’
Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

The bad blood simmering between Colby Covington and Tyron Woodley has spilled over into the political landscape.

Shortly following the UFC Vegas 11 pre-fight press conference on Thursday, Covington took to social media and posted a picture of himself wearing a ‘Keep America Great’ hat, along with a caption that implied that Black Lives Matter is a ‘domestic terrorist’ group.

“The face I make when I’m ready to give a domestic terrorist sympathizer a hard lesson in American resolve,” read the post.

Covington’s statement is a response to Woodley’s portion of the press conference, where the former UFC champion came out wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt and a hat similar to the MAGA hats worn by President Donald Trump’s followers that said “Make Racists Catch the Fade Again.”

While on stage, Woodley answered every question levied at him by the media with some variation of “Black Lives Matter” before eventually leaving the stage.

Covington later claimed that Woodley was trying to “copy what I do.”

“He’s wearing some hat that says whatever it said, ‘Make Racists Fade Again,’ but the only person catching a fade is Tyron Woodley on Saturday night. He’s the only one that’s racist.

“The only race there is in this fight is the race to get him out of the UFC.”

Black Lives Matter is decentralized political and social movement advocating for non-violent civil disobedience in protest against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against Black people. It is not a domestic terrorist organization, as Covington claimed in his social media post.

It should be noted that former UFC champion Tito Ortiz responded to Covington’s post by calling Woodley a “terrorist.”

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About the author
Karim Zidan
Karim Zidan

Karim Zidan is a investigative reporter and feature writer focusing on the intersection of sports and politics. He has written for BloodyElbow since 2014 and has served as an associate editor since 2016. He also writes for The New York Times and The Guardian. Karim has been invited to speak about his work at numerous universities, including Princeton, and was a panelist at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival and the Oslo Freedom Forum. He also participated in the United Nations counter-terrorism conference in 2021. His reporting on Ramzan Kadyrov’s involvement in MMA, much of which was done for Bloody Elbow, has led to numerous award nominations, and was the basis of an award-winning HBO Real Sports documentary.

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