Colby Covington believes he faces new challenges after beating Jorge Masvidal. However, if UFC wishes to pair up the two former partners again, Covington is open to doing so.
Covington won a decisive unanimous win over Masvidal at the UFC 272 main event earlier in this month in Las Vegas. After losing to Kamaru Usman, the welterweight champion at UFC 268., Chaos won all of the scorescards.
Masvidal stated that since the fight’s end, he loved to fight Covington once more and would like to “see him soon.” Covington said it would be fine with him.
“He can be beat up and knocked unconscious again,” Covington said to MMA Fighting. “That was my worst performance and that was his best performance and he still got starched every single round. Fans want me to put my lights out. If he speaks too recklessly, we’ll get beat up in public. He’ll be dropped on concrete but the UFC will not pay for his medical expenses so hopefully he’ll have another UFC fight.
“I’m open to anything. The biggest and best business that Hunter Campbell and the UFC want to do, I’m ready to do. It’s exciting and I will be there. They are aware of how hard I work and the benefits I receive every day
The build to the fight told the story of a friendship that turned to bitter hatred. Covington was happy with the UFC process, including joint interviews and the UFC media conference, which seemed to be off-track more times than usual. In fact, during those exchanges with Masvidal, Covington felt like he already jumped out to an early lead before the fight even started.
” I could see his madness because he couldn’t change it,” Covington stated. “But at least he tried. He came out and actually tried but he knew he couldn’t do anything about it so he was just pouting like a little kid, trying to interrupt me, not let me talk and get my point across.”
There were two moments in the fight that can be considered contentious. In the first round, Covington made an unintentional eye poke. Masvidal reacted to it, but referee Herb Dean didn’t see it, nor call a stop to the action. “Gamebred,” a spokesman for Dean expressed frustration, particularly since Covington would land a takedown, and with it, some early momentum.
In Covington’s view, the no-call wouldn’t have changed the result.
” I did not feel the poke and didn’t realize that it had occurred,” Covington said. “I was in the heat of the moment trying to punch this dude’s face off so it didn’t make any impact. The cage was up and we got stuck. I then started my wrestling. He was not going to stop me doing what I planned, and had 25 seconds to stop it. He was defenseless, he gave up, and he just didn’t want to get finished. He didn’t get finished. But he got marked up against the cage and was almost done.
” I outsrucked him by twice. He was a striker, he wrestled, and I beat him all over. The guy is a journeyman like I said, I said all of these things. I said truth about him. He hit lightning in a bottle. He’s a two-pump chump. He doesn’t have cardio like the cardio king. He can’t keep up with the greatest American fighter of all-time. It was an easy night, a flawless victory.”
The other often discussed moment took place in Round 4. Masvidal made a huge shot during an exchange that seemed to have shocked Covington. Admittedly, fatigue played a major factor as to why Masvidal didn’t explode towards additional offense.
Covington claims he wasn’t rocked but was temporarily off balance and returned to complete the round. All three judges gave him a favorable score.
With the history of the fight now complete, Covington believes that Masvidal may be using the landed punch to justify wanting it back for a second round. The former interim champion at welterweight feels this would be a huge mistake.
“If he wants to talk about one punch in 25 minutes, OK, let’s talk about what happened at the end of the 25 minutes,” Covington said. “Did you not see that guy hanging on the f****** security guards? “He literally can’t walk. He’s exhausted. He can’t speak. He can’t even walk, he’s got people holding him up. It’s me there. I feel fresh. I don’t think I got in any 25-minute fight.
“Imagine someone not pulling me away from him. Imagine if we were in the streets: I’m literally taking his life, his life is over in that moment. It is clear that his soul was taken and his life is now over.
