Tyron Woodley backs Jorge Masvidal to beat Colby Covington in UFC 272 grudge match

Tyron Woodley believes Jorge Masvidal will defeat Colby Covington in their grudge match at UFC 272 because Gamebred has the ‘big brother’ edge over his welterweight rival.

All eyes will be on the Octagon next month as Masvidal, 37, and Covington, 33, finally settle their dispute in a friends-turned-foes clash, with the pair spending years training together at American Top Team in Florida.

Covington and Masvidal also used to live together  and would help each other prepare for their bouts as they were scaling the UFC rankings, with footage showing both men in each other’s corners for their respective bouts. 

However, Chaos left the gym in 2020 after falling out with a number of team-mates, including Masvidal, with constant jibes sent in both directions ever since.

Covington is the No 1 ranked welterweight, while Masvidal is No 6 after back-to-back defeats by Kamaru Usman, yet Woodley – a friend of the fan-favourite – believes that Gamebred has the edge because he is still viewed as the ‘big brother’ in the relationship.

‘I feel like Masvidal is going to win, because Masvidal is always big brother,’ Woodley told MMA Junkie radio. 

The friends-turned-enemies finally settle their grudge at UFC 272 after previously forming a close bond as training partners

Woodley believes that Masvidal still holds the ‘big brother’ edge over his younger opponent

‘Once you have big brother syndrome over someone, I feel like you can’t really shake that unless you have a big breakout moment and you can consistently keep up.

‘There’s a couple of guys that I used to wrestle and they would always beat me. Then I would beat them one time and I just f*****g got a little cocky and I just started beating them consecutively. That don’t happen very often.

‘I don’t think Colby had enough time fighting at the highest level in the gym with Masvidal to have had that moment,’ Woodley, who suffered a fifth round defeat by Covington in 2020, added.

‘Whenever he started getting to the point where he started talking enough to get himself in position, he had to leave the gym. They weren’t even training together anymore. So I don’t think he had a large enough victory in the gym.’

No 1 welterweight Covington lived and trained with Masvidal before leaving the gym in 2020

Masvidal has recently claimed that Woodley brought Covington into training before Chaos turned on the former welterweight champion.

‘Tyron Woodley brought him out. He was giving him like $1,000 a week, something crazy like that when this guy was an amateur just to train with him for four weeks. Sponsors, food, and then he just came back talking sh** about Woodley in a negative way.

‘I’m hoping that the referee, on the way to pulling me off of him, slips on a banana peel and I get some extra shots in and really change his life and his face structure,’ he warned.