Covington stokes fire started by postfight comments at UFC Sao Paulo

For Colby Covington, all is fair when thousands of Brazilians are showering you with death chants in Portuguese.

After capping a week's worth of trash talk with a postfight speech Saturday in which he called Brazilians "filthy animals" in opponent Demian Maia's native Sao Paulo, the UFC welterweight took to Twitter to plead his case and issue a "formal apology" that only stoked the fire he'd started:

The brash contender was met with death threats from the Brazilian faithful on fight night, as is usually the case when foreign invaders fight native sons, and even drew the ire of several American Top Team cohorts following his unanimous decision win over Maia, including Will Brooks, Din Thomas, Antonio Silva, and reigning welterweight champion Tyron Woodley - the target of Covington's postfight callout - who's trained primarily at Roufusport of late.

Covington didn't attend the ensuing presser, presumably for safety concerns. UFC exec David Shaw later told the media the brass was none too pleased with Covington's behavior and would review his comments.