Dan Lambert is the founder of American Top Team and the manager of UFC Interim Welterweight Champion Colby Covington.
The ATT founder is as shocked as many are that Covington was skipped over for a title shot at UFC 235, which now goes to Kamaru Usman.
“It was pretty much a done deal until it wasn’t, I mean…it’s a crazy world out there sometimes. I’m not going to pretend I know Dana White’s job better than Dana or the matchmakers and what they’re doing, I don’t. That’s not what we do, we train fighters and get them ready to fight. It defies logic to me, I mean…you have a fight that the fighters want, seems like the fight that the fans want. You have the champion and the guy who was/is the interim champion…depending on who you ask, they both want it. There’s some bad blood there, there’s a back story with them both training together in the past. I don’t know, it didn’t fit the UFC’s narrative at that particular time I guess. There’s a couple of reasons they’re throwing around to as why it may have gone down like that, I don’t know…it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It is what it is, what are you gonna do?” says Lambert in an exclusive interview with Fightful’s James Lynch.
Usman does sit at #2 in the UFC Welterweight Division rankings, with Covington being the only fighter ahead of him.
Covington took a lot of shots at the UFC after learning of the situation surrounding UFC 235 and Lambert says the interim champion meant every word of what was said.
“I don’t think its the first time Dana’s been called an asshole by somebody, Dana’s a big boy with some thick skin. I don’t think he gives a shit what people say about him, he wants people that fight to win fights and put themselves in the right position. That’s what I thought Colby had done, apparently he hadn’t do so in their eyes…right place, right time. We’ll see how it goes, I don’t really know how it’ll play out. I couldn’t guarantee you that Colby’s gonna get the next title shot…that Colby’s gonna fight somebody else…that Colby’s gonna look for a job somewhere else. I can see it playing out in any of those ways, I don’t know…but I know one thing, when Colby says ‘f*ck it, I want my title shot or I’m not doing shit…f*ck them.’ Colby means it,” says Lambert.
UFC 235 takes place on Saturday, March 2 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Jon Jones and Anthony Smith potentially headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
