Covington made a surprising appearance weighing in for UFC 286. He surprised everyone and even stole the thunder from the main event.
What was even more surprising, was when Dana White declared him as the next person in line for title shot in the immediate aftermath of the event.
This riled up many fans and UFC stars including Belal Muhammad. Muhammad has notable wins and is on his way to getting a title shot. Many even consider him more deserving.
Covington quickly took back the news cycle, calling Belal Muhammad a racist over the following tweet and then stepped it up another notch, threatening to make Jon Anik’s kids into orphans for featuring Muhammad on his podcast.
But what many might not know, is that Covington has a ghost writer and isn’t actually the brains behind the vitriol and the ‘heel character’.
That honor belongs to John Harnett. He is the third-party ghostwriter who is the backbone of all the trolling insults Covington throws at his opponent’s faces.
Josh Harnett used to be a part of the American Top Team but was likely ousted around the same time as Covington. Covington famously went in on hard on ATT guys including Dustin Poirier and Jorge Masvidal.
Masvidal wasn’t a fan of this strategy and blasted Harnett on social media previously.
Even Ariel Helwani acknowledged this part of the Covington lore during a recent MMA Hour segment in which he discussed Covington getting a title shot off of a 15 month break.
“You know what what was interesting about what I saw on camera from these appearances? Which, you know, he pretty much you know from the clips that I saw. He was saying the same thing in in each and every one. Shout out to his Ghost Writer Mr Hartnett who writes great material for him and has been for a very long time.”
“To me he came across as a guy who thought that he would come back and be celebrated and everyone would be hyped to see him back. ”
“And he came out of nowhere and no one knew that he was going to show up and there he is on the scale and it was all very theatrical. ”
“And I think he thought that it would be like maybe a baby face he got jumped he got sucker punched like and he came across as somewhat unhinged and a guy who was upset that maybe the public opinion on him was going to sway the UFC’s stance.”
Belal Muhammad also reiterated this overnight, explaining Covington likely wears glasses constantly so he could read from a script.