Paul Felder’s manager gives other side of Colby Covington’s military base story: ‘[Felder] was never tied to a toilet’

Paul Felder’s manager Brian Butler wants to set the record straight when it comes to his client.

In a recent interview with Submission Radio, UFC welterweight Colby Covington was asked about Felder’s comments about him on his podcast Believe You Me, which Felder co-hosts with Michael Bisping, Felder mentioned that Covington’s “persona is fading,” and that Covington really doesn’t want to talk trash, but does so to “stay relevant.”

Covington went off on Felder, and told a story about a visit to a military base in 2017 in which both men were involved.

“He was talking shit about me,” Covington told Submission Radio. “He was saying some shit that. ‘Oh, he’s done this and that and and some other shit,’ I want you to go ask him, next time you see him in person, ask him about the time you were at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. The Army and Air Force base. And he got tied f*cking in handcuffs by the military police to a toilet in his bathroom because he was drunk on the base. Like, that’s embarrassing, you self-loathing, drunk asshole. He must be drunk half the time. He’s in that commentary booth for the UFC. Man, I feel bad for the UFC. They need to get some new commentators. And what better man, I could be the UFC commentator. I don’t have any stories like that. ...

“So he drank a bottle of Jack Daniels to himself. He started talking shit to his manager, Brian Butler. I had to step in like ‘Paul, stop talking shit to him. Like, you’re not going to beat up your manager.’ He was blacked out and he just lost it. Like, how do you not have more control?

“You’re supposed to show respect to the troops. You’re there to boost morale for the military. Here you are trying to fight with your manager. I’m the one that had to intervene and make sure he didn’t beat up his manager, Brian Butler, with Sucker Punch. And then he goes into his hotel room. He starts f*cking throwing shit around in his hotel room on a military installation base. And then the military police got called. They had to freaking handcuff him to the toilet.”

Butler became aware of Covington’s comments from Felder, and a number of fighters on the Suckerpunch Entertainment roster, and says he was a tad surprised because Covington addressed Felder’s comments on a live stream in the past saying he “respected” Felder.

“A lot of people think that Colby is an asshole, and it’s only because of the character that he plays, but every time that I’ve met Colby in person, he’s a completely different guy,” Butler told MMA Fighting. “He’s absolutely respectful, he’s absolutely genuine, he absolutely takes time for fans and things like that. I think anybody that’s met him in person would tell you that, asides from maybe some of the people he’s gone heel on, and maybe former teammates and things like that, because I think he just doesn’t know when he’s gone too far, right? Like, he takes things pretty far.

“I will say that this story about Paul is is definitely taking things pretty far. Is Paul really upset by it? No. But at the same time, we don’t really want anybody believing Paul was arrested and handcuffed to a toilet. Something like that just never happened.”

In regards to Covington’s story about Felder drinking too much that night on the base, Butler says there’s certainly some accurate parts of the story, and other parts that absolutely aren’t true. He laid out the beginning of the situation.

“So what Colby does is he takes parts of the truth and then he embellishes it,” Butler said. “So I will tell you there is little bits of truth here, so I’ll just run you through the whole thing, and Paul will say the same thing. ...

“We were doing a military tour [at Joint Base Langley-Eustis] we were doing that with Miesha Tate and Colby and Paul, and I think Stitch [Duran] was there. But it was a great tour and we had just gotten done with a long day of hanging with the troops and doing things and we were sitting in the hotel lobby with a few of the people that we were with all day, and we were drinking whiskey, and we were there all night. Miesha came down on her laptop and started working and we were all just sitting in the lobby and for hours we had some drinks and granted we all probably had a maybe a little too much, including myself, but it was just a good time. ...

“I don’t know what happened, but if you know Paul, he’s a self-deprecating guy. He’s one of those guys that gets angry, but he’s not really angry, but he is really—if you know Paul, he’s funny that way. It’s just him and he can take it as much as he dishes it out. So I guess I was doing something for him because he was maybe between fights and begging for a fight, but he was... Paul used to be that guy that could have been a 170-pounder or a [lightweight]. He was a tweener. So I would always give him shit, like I’d record me eating food in slow motion, and just mess with him. Later in the night, I guess he got irritated by that [and] nobody thought it because he just got up and left. He’s like, ‘I’m going to bed.’

“Then he headed towards the elevator and then we all started laughing, we all started laughing about, joking around with Paul, and then from a distance we hear, ‘I can still hear you,’ and that that made us all laugh even more. It’s classic Paul. He gets in the elevator, he goes up and then we all just continue on with it.”

From there, the rest of the group hung out, but then Butler got a phone call from Felder, who told Butler that “my hotel room is broken,” and that was essentially it. Still, concern set in, as it naturally should.

“Somebody went up there and there was water leaking out underneath his door into the hallway, so I was like, ‘Oh, great,’” Butler said. “And then he wasn’t answering the door, so maybe, just in my head, maybe he’s passed out in the bed and water just flowing out of his room, whatever. So we go up there and banging on the door, and we all go up there cause we’re all like, what the hell is going on?

“We’re banging on the door and he doesn’t answer and then I’m trying to kind of scare him into opening the door because the water is just coming out. I’m like, ‘Paul, answer the door, man.’ I was like, ‘The military police are coming if you don’t answer the door,’ trying to get him to get up and open the door. So I just hear the door rattle, it unlocks, and then I’m like, ‘I ain’t trying to go in here by myself, cause I don’t know, how drunk Paul is,’ but I was also half kidding.

“So I opened the door and I see the water coming out from the bathroom and I see Paul’s shadowy figure in the in the window by his bed in the back or just the silhouette, it’s just kind of teetering, and I’m like, this is like a horror movie, so I’m like, ‘Alright, who’s going on?’ [I hear], ‘You got to go in, you’re the manager.’ I’m like, ‘F*ck, OK, I’ll go in.’”

As Butler cautiously entered the room, he saw water leaking on the floor. Stepping further inside the room, Butler eventually noticed that Covington was the only other person who entered with him — which is something Butler appreciated.

“I’m like, ‘Paul, man, what the hell happened to your room?’ He’s like, ‘I slammed the lid and the toilet broke,’” Butler said. “Who knows what happened? I’m like, ‘Listen, we got to get out of here and let’s clean this up, get you to another room, and get out of here.’ And he was just like, he wasn’t looking at me. We could tell he that he had a lot of whiskey in him and he was kind of like looking through me or looking at my chest, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God,’ this is in my head I’m like, ‘There’s a slight chance if I press him too hard, he’s going to swing on me.’ I knew probably not.

“But the cool thing was, and this is what I actually commend Colby on, everybody stayed outside because they were actually scared to go in his room, but they’re also... we’re all kind of playing it up. I turn around, I look over my shoulder and Colby’s right there, right behind my back and standing there just quiet, and I’m like, in my head [I think], ‘See, good on Colby. He’s in here to get my back just in case, right?’ And nothing happened, and then Paul was like, ‘Alright,’ he grumbled... and we cleaned [up the room] and they moved into another room, and that was it.”

When the situation that night came to an end, Butler approached the former interim UFC welterweight champion to show his appreciation for the assist. All seemed to be well.

Felder had to face the group the following morning, according to Butler, and everyone had a good time at Felder’s expense, including soldiers and employees at the base to this day.

“I told Colby, I was like, ‘Hey man, I appreciate you doing that,’” Butler said. He’s like, ‘Of course, man’ and he’s just that guy, and that was the end of it. The next morning we woke up, everybody in the hotel lobby was ready to give Paul some shit as soon as he came off the elevator and they did, and it was a big laugh and it was just fun, and now they’ve been asking us to come back ever since, and it just hasn’t lined up and that’s the truth of it.

“There was never any military police, he was never tied to a toilet, he was never trying to start a fight with me. He got angry with me because I guess I joked him too much on, ‘You want to fight, stop eating that f*cking Kit Kat’ kind of thing. But that was also the whiskey talking. That was it.

“I appreciate Colby for the little gesture that he did by being the only person to walk in with me, but I was never really in any danger, you know what I mean? And Paul was never trying to fight me and we’ve been joking about that story ever since, and we still talk to the people on the base every now and then about it. They check in on on holidays. It’s hilarious. That’s all it was, man.”