Jon Jones and Colby Covington went from sharing a college room to trading shots like they can’t stand each other. And now, Gable Steveson’s brutal 12-second knockout loss at UFC 331 has dragged their old rivalry right back into the spotlight.

After the fight, ‘Chaos’ pointed the finger at Jones, claiming his influence as the mentor to the Olympian, and “negative energy” had something to do with Steveson getting flattened by Sean Sharaf. ‘Bones,’ unsurprisingly, wasn’t about to let that slide. The UFC legend came back with a lengthy response aimed straight at his former roommate.

“It’s funny that you blame Gable’s loss on my “negative energy,” he wrote on X. “Meanwhile, I’m an undefeated fighter living the absolute American dream.Before he was caught, our guy had finished every opponent in the first round.Your logic doesn’t make any sense.

Jon Jones was responding to comments Colby Covington made during a late-September interview with Submission Radio, where the former UFC welterweight title challenger explained why he wasn’t exactly shocked to see Steveson get brutally humbled after a brutal first-round knockout defeat against Sean Sharaf at UFC 331, putting an abrupt end to his unbeaten start in MMA.

‘Chaos’ blamed Steveson’s overconfidence, arguing the Olympic wrestler had grown too full of himself. The former Olympic gold medalist, he argued, was hyping himself up, looking past opponents and starting to fight like he couldn’t lose. In the former interim welterweight champion’s eyes, that was a recipe for disaster.

“I definitely saw this coming,” Covington said. “You know, he was over-hyping himself, overlooking other competitors, and he just thought he was invincible.

“He’s a great athlete, Olympic-champ wrestler, but when you get away from what brought you to the dance, that’s never going to be good for you, and he’s got away from that.”

And that’s where the 38-year-old really turned up the heat, dragging ‘Bones’ directly into the conversation. He argued that Gable Steveson’s problems weren’t just about getting too confident; they were also about the people he had around him.

“Jon Jones is bad energy,” Covington said.”That guy is a demon, man. We’ve seen the long laundry list of bad things he’s done to women, to people, to cops, to drug testers. He’s just a horrible person, bro.

“When you align yourself with, and you’re surrounded by that bad energy all the time, it’s going to rub off on you.”

Steveson’s early exit from the Octagon only deepened the controversy. The Olympian quickly walked out of the Octagon instead of sticking around to watch Sharaf get his hand raised.And according to Jon Jones, that exit was actually his idea.

However, that little detail only gave Colby Covington more ammo for his argument that the 26-year-old might want to rethink who he’s surrounding himself with.

Jon Jones, though, wasn’t having any of it.

“I also find it funny that you, of all people, are commenting on my supposedly negative energy,” he added in his tweet.”I travel the world alone and get mobbed by fans, while you need full-time security in your own country.

“You come out once a quarter to do an interview about me and what a terrible person I am. Boy, you’re obsessed with me. A blind man could see that. We started off in the same dorm room, yet I’ve earned and achieved literally ten times more than you have. I genuinely hope that one day you start to feel better. It sucks to even have to address you … again.”

And Jon Jones wasn’t about to let the back-and-forth end there. He took the feud into even more personal territory by posting an X-ray of the former interim welterweight champion’s broken jaw from his UFC 245 loss to Kamaru Usman before making it clear he was happy to drag one of Colby Covington’s most painful career moments into the argument.

“Colby, I think your deep hatred is directed at the wrong Black guy,” he tweeted.”It was Usman who broke your face, not me.”

But ‘Chaos’ clearly wasn’t ready to let one slide either. If ‘Bones’ was going to get personal, the former title challenger was more than willing to fire back with some shots of his own.

Colby Covington fires back with another personal shot at Jon Jones

Colby Covington wasn’t about to let Jon Jones walk away with the last word. He fired right back, doubling down on his criticism and dragging Jones’ legal troubles into the feud once again.

According to ‘Chaos,’ the reason the former heavyweight champion was reacting so strongly was simple: he believed his comments hit a nerve. He also argued that Jon Jones’ success inside the Octagon shouldn’t excuse his behavior outside of it.

“The things I say only bother you because they’re true @jonnybones,” he tweeted. “You’re a narcissistic, abusive sociopath. Your achievements inside the Octagon don’t make you a better person outside of it.

“Those same achievements definitely don’t give you the right to abuse women either, Jon.”

‘Bones’ was arrested and accused of domestic battery in 2021, though the charge was later dropped as part of a plea deal. ‘Chaos’ pointed to that history while arguing that Jones’ accomplishments inside the Octagon shouldn’t put him above criticism for his actions outside it.

But Covington wasn’t done getting personal. He took another shot at Jones’ family before circling back to the original issue: Steveson and whether he should continue working with Jones.

“At the end of the day I feel for Gable being in this situation… it’s too bad he can’t take punches from heavyweights as well as your wife does,” Covington wrote. “If Gable really cares about advancing in his career, he should leave you and go train with a real man like Daniel Cormier.”

What makes this whole feud even crazier is that Jon Jones and Colby Covington weren’t always at each other’s throats. Long before the X posts and personal jabs, the two were actually roommates and teammates at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, Iowa, where they were part of the school’s highly successful wrestling program.

Back then, there was reportedly no bad blood between them. The former interim welterweight champion has previously talked about how much time they used to spend together, while ‘Bones’ has also recalled looking out for his former roommate during their college days.

Their relationship went south after college as both men carved out their own paths in the UFC. Colby Covington repeatedly took aim at Jones’ character and legal troubles, while the former heavyweight champion fired back by accusing the 38-year-old of being fake and playing up a carefully crafted persona to stay in the spotlight.

Now, years after they went from college roommates to bitter rivals, Gable Steveson has somehow landed right in the middle of their latest war of words. His first professional MMA loss may have put questions around what comes next for his career, but it has also dragged Jones and Covington back into one of the most personal feuds in their history.