"He's a little rat" - Colby Covington reveals he lied about a knee injury to a common friend to see if it reached Jorge Masvidal

Colby Covington has revealed that he didn't have a knee injury heading into his recently-concluded grudge match against Jorge Masvidal at UFC 272.

At the ceremonial weigh-ins ahead of the fight, Masvidal was seen asking Covington if he'd had to be injected with cortisone shots (injections used to relieve pain and inflammation in specific areas of the body caused due to injury) in his knee, indicating that 'Chaos' was carrying an injury.

"What happened to your knee huh? What happened to your knee? You got cortisone for your knee? Huh? You got cortisone on your knee, is that true?" Masvidal was heard saying at the weigh-ins.

In a cryptic tweet, even Masvidal's manager Malki Kawa insinuated that they knew Covington was carrying an injury heading into the fight.

As it turns out, both Masvidal and his manager might have been manipulated by Covington. During a backstage interview with Laura Sanko following UFC 272, Covington revealed that he wasn't injured at all. 'Chaos' said he intentionally put out a word about having picked up an injury to test the loyalty of a common friend.

He wanted to check whether the person would leak the information to Masvidal and that's exactly what happened.

"It's funny, I did that intentionally... Because I want[ed] to see where his loyalty was, you know. He said he was all team Colby but now I know he's team Jorge and you know, he's a little rat so I can't trust people going forward and I'm gonna keep my circle even smaller than it was," Covington said.

Check out his conversation with Laura Sanko below:

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Colby Covington eyeing July return to the octagon

Colby Covington is planning on making a quick turnaround for his next fight. The former interim welterweight champion wants to fight three times this year and claims he'd like to return to the octagon in July during international fight week.

"I'd love to come back in July. I think international fight week is the biggest week of the year, you know, get one of the biggest stars in the company Colby 'Chaos' Covington, America's champ, Donald Trump's favorite fighter, the king of Miami, now the people's champ and let's do this," Covington said.

Interestingly, reigning champion Kamaru Usman also revealed that he'd like to step inside the cage during that time to defend his title against Leon Edwards. Colby Covington, on the other hand, called out yet another former ATT teammate, Dustin Poirier, to settle their rivalry inside the octagon.