Ben Askren has been one of the targets of Colby Covington’s verbal jabs lately, but recently “Funky” delivered a rather interesting counter shot to “Chaos”.

If you’ve been following Askren then you know that in recent weeks he’s delivered insults and warnings to various UFC fighters, on account of his recent move to the promotion. Some of the fighters have returned fire, and one of the welterweights who has been targeting Askren is the aforementioned Covington. Case in point, recently Covington referred to Askren as “Asscream”, while discussing the latter’s January 26th bout with Robbie Lawler.

More recently, Askren appeared on the UFC’s “Unfiltered” podcast, and during the interview, the former ONE and Bellator champ talked about the growth of his social media audience and his ability to sling trash. In addition, Askren also shared some thoughts on Mr. Covington (quotes via MMA NYTT):

“I don’t think the number of followers has anything to do with how good I am fighting,” Askren said. “That said, I am good at fighting and I do have a lot of followers. So I think it will help me get the bigger fights…

“…but people enjoy my personality and they enjoy that I tell the truth. I speak plainly, I don’t beat around the bush and I’m just genuine.”

“One of the reasons why Colby isn’t catching on, and Colby has been in the UFC for four-years, he had a fake title shot, and he still had a very small amount of the following that I do,” Askren said. “Whether it’s Instagram or Twitter or whatever. Part of the reason that’s happened is because it’s so contrived.

“When Colby says stuff you don’t think wow that’s unique and that’s genuine. The fact that he has to bring Trump into everything is so that everyone gets mad because everyone hates Trump right. He has to do that to draw interest, it’s just an obvious sign that people aren’t that into you.”

Now, there’s no question that Covington’s following has grown over the last couple of years, on account of his rise up the welterweight ranks and his controversial, trash-talking shtick. But, it is interesting to see that Askren currently has 124K followers on Twitter while Covington has around 60K. The champ Tyron Woodley, who Covington has repeatedly bashed, has 222K. Askren is also not the only person to argue that Covington’s verbal game often seems forced, in addition to controversial. So, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for Covington in the coming months. If he does fight Woodley, and loses, what will the market be for “Chaos” fights then?