American Top Team co-founder Ricardo Liborio recently announced he was leaving the team after the whole situation between Colby Covington and his calling of the Brazilian people “filthy animals.”
However, according to ATT co-founder Dan Lambert, the famed coach had already left the team a while back.
“(Liborio) left two years ago,” Lambert said to MMA Junkie. “He moved to Orlando, three hours north of here, for family issues. I made a deal with him, I said, ‘OK, I’ll keep you on the payroll. Just come down a couple days a week and train guys.’ He never came down. He got too busy up there, so I kept him on the payroll for over a year to help him out, and then earlier this year we ended it because he just hadn’t been down. But that was months and months and months ago.”
While Liborio didn’t directly blame Covington for his exit from the team, the coach did say he received lots of emails and other messages after the whole situation with the fighter took place.
Lambert also believes that the reaction Liborio had about the whole Covington situation is a reaction that anybody from Brazil should’ve had.
“I wasn’t put off by him condemning what Colby said,” Lambert said. “That’s a normal reaction for somebody to have, especially for somebody from the country. Everybody is entitled to their opinion on that.”
There is no word at this time if Liborio will go to another fight team or start his own and Lambert has yet to announce of anyone will replace the coach at ATT.
