Colby Covington tries to get a shot at UFC’s middleweight champion.
At UFC 272, Covington finally settled his longtime feud with former teammate Jorge Masvidal, winning a unanimous decision and reinforcing his position as the second-best welterweight in the world behind UFC champion Kamaru Usman. Covington has suffered two defeats to Usman and is now out of the 170-pound championship picture. “Chaos,” however, demanded that another feud be resolved against Dustin Poirier, the former UFC interim lightweight champion. Unfortunately for Covington, Poirier isn’t interested in that fight, and so the one-time UFC welterweight champion is having to set his sights a little higher, towards UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
“I think I can definitely go up to 185 and fight Adesanya,” Covington told Submission Radio. “But I don’t know if he’s gonna turn around like that. He doesn’t even have a partner in dance right now. I mean, some of the guys they’re trying to line him up with, it’s unoriginal. He can fight Usman and the fans would love that. But, the man who beat Usman is me. I beat Usman twice. Usman sucks, dude. Everybody knew in Madison Square Garden I won those last three rounds. I won easily, it was an easy victory. Unanimous. So, why can’t I fight Adesanya? He can’t stop my wrestling. He’ll be picked up by me and thrown on to his f ****** back. He’s a cardio kickboxer. There were enough cardio kickboxers for women’s classes in the U.S. They had enough cardio kickboxers in women’s classes across the U.S. I was tempted to join them, but instead I chose American wrestling. Adesanya would not be able to stop me American wrestling. He’s also not a good fighter .”
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Adesanya recently won his title defense against Robert Whittaker, taking home an unanimous win. The next matchup for “The Last Stylebender,” appears to be a clash with MMA Fighting’s No. 4-ranked middleweight Jared Cannonier, who knocked out Derek Brunson on the same fight card. However, some have suggested that Adesanya would be better served by facing Covington next. Adesanya, for his part, has not been open to facing Covington, at least until Covington wins at least one fight at the middleweight weight. But Covington insists that he does not want to make a permanent jump up and he only wants one major fight.
“I want to give the fans the biggest fight possible. I don’t cut weight to go to 170, so I’m not gonna go up to 185 and make it a full-time home. But I’m waiting for the big fights to present themselves, and the two biggest fights in my mind, go beat up Adesanya, the guy who just has cardio kickboxing, he’s not that good of a fighter, he’s not well-rounded, he can’t stop my American wrestling. I’ll melt that guy. He’ll a hundred percent melt under my pressure and my pace.
“Fight Dustin the man who claimed it was on sight. He said he wants to fight in my weight class 170,. If you are pound-for-pound great then go fight. What is your fear, man ?
