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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Farah Hannoun

UFC Fight Night 224 winner Themba Gorimbo explains how ‘great man’ Colby Covington helped career

LAS VEGAS – Themba Gorimbo credits Colby Covington for facilitating his move to MMA Masters.

Gorimbo (11-4 MMA, 1-1 UFC) picked up his first octagon win Saturday at UFC Fight Night 224 when he defeated Takashi Sato by unanimous decision at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

The fight against Sato marked Gorimbo’s first with MMA Masters. Gorimbo said he was abandoned after his octagon debut loss, and one person who helped him out is Covington, who has a bad reputation with plenty of people in the MMA industry – but Gorimbo showed “Chaos” plenty of gratitude.

“Colby Covington, he’s such a great guy, man,” Gorimbo told reporters at the post-fight news conference. “Colby Covington, sometimes he’d bring food for me at the gym. And people say what they wanna about him, but that guy is a great man. You have to know him to kind of know him.”

Gorimbo explained how he initially wanted to move to Germany but after that didn’t work out, an Instagram post swayed him towards the Florida-based gym.

“I was supposed to go to Germany to train there,” Gorimbo said. “Then when I was in the German embassy they rejected my visa to go to Germany. Then when I was in there I saw Colby Covington. He posted a picture with him, ‘Pedrita’ (Cachoeira) and the other two coaches. And I was like, ‘Maybe that’s a sign from God telling me I need to go there.'”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 224.

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