Two UFC Fighters Had A Boomerang Brawl In Australia And Now The Courts Are Involved

UFC fighters are supposed to keep their violence in the cage where it’s sanctioned, but that’s not how things went this week leading up to an event in Sydney, Australia. Headliner and former heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum got into an altercation with welterweight contender Colby Covington that ended with Werdum throwing a boomerang in Covington’s face. The whole thing was captured on film by another UFC fighter on the card, Dan Hooker.

Covington has been pushing a pro wrestling-level bad guy persona pretty hard lately, and went so far as calling the crowd in Brazil a bunch of filthy animals after his last win. That really upset a lot of Brazilian fighters, and it’s almost guaranteed this assault from Werdum was related to those comments.

Speaking of it being an assault, Colby has gone ahead and pressed charges against Werdum. He’ll now have to appear in front of an Australian court on Dec. 13. Considering the incident was caught clearly on film, Fabricio could be in a decent amount of trouble.

We have to admit the whole boomerang angle makes this pretty funny, but it’s also never a good look for the UFC when its fighters get into street fights. This isn’t even Werdum’s first offense outside of the octagon: Just last month he unleashed a tirade of homophobic slurs against UFC lightweight champ Tony Ferguson at a media luncheon and had to be removed from the event. In an unfortunate bit of synchronicity, Covington also threw some homophobic slurs back at Werdum during this latest incident.

Add in Conor McGregor dropping a homophobic slur recently, and the three events create a homophobic air around the promotion. These are clear violations of the UFC’s code of conduct, but the organization has been strangely reticent about punishing its poorly behaving athletes since the WME-Endeavor sale last July. It will be interesting to see if they do anything about Werdum and Covington … after Werdum headlines UFC Sydney, of course.

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