UFC veteran reacts to Colby Covington's eyebrow-raising remarks on Belal Muhammad and Lebanon attacks

Colby Covington has drawn the ire of former UFC welterweight Jake Shields for a tasteless joke 'Chaos' made about Belal Muhammad. While addressing the media ahead of his UFC on ESPN 63 clash with Joaquin Buckley, Covington spoke about previously offering to step in on short-notice at UFC 310 for the injured Muhammad.

In doing so, Covington referenced the thousands of pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies detonated by Israeli intelligence forces in Lebanon on Sep. 17 and 18. Covington used this incident to poke fun at Muhammad.

He claimed that Muhammad, a Palestinian-American, withdrew from his welterweight title defense against Shavkat Rakhmonov at UFC 310 due to a pager exploding and injuring his foot. It was a crass remark that caused Jake Shields to reference Jorge Masvidal's assault on 'Chaos.'

Shields tweeted:

"I'm kinda glad Masvidal kicked his *ss."

Shields is a well-known supporter of Palestine and a fervent critic of Israel, even spreading anti-semitic conspiracy theories. He has also struck up a friendship with Muhammad, who has, like many others, aimed criticism at Covington in the past.

Despite how much visibility his trash talk has earned him throughout the years, Covington is in something of a rough patch. He is 0-3 in undisputed title fights, which even he recently admitted dragged him to his lowest career point.

At 2-3 in his last five fights with a #6 ranking, he has a long way to go before he's given an unprecedented fourth shot at undisputed welterweight gold.

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Colby Covington took trash-talking too far against his last opponent

Ahead of his UFC 296 bout with Leon Edwards, where he challenged the Englishman for the welterweight title, Colby Covington punctuated the pre-fight press conference in classic fashion by taking things as far as he could.

Prior to the bout, he said:

"On Saturday night, I'm going to bring you to a place you never wanna be. I'm gonna bring you to the seventh layer of [hell]. No I'm bringing you to the seventh layer of hell. We'll say what's up to your dad while we're there."

Check out Colby Covington trash-talking Leon Edwards' father (17:38):

Edwards' father was murdered when he was still a child, and Covington's remarks enraged him, but that didn't prove to be a factor on fight night, as 'Rocky' outpointed Covington for the unanimous decision win.