Colby Covington made an unmistakable statement by beating Jorge Masvidal.
So now?
“Chaos won Saturday’s UFC 272 main-event victory. He used pressure striking and wrestling as well to give Masvidal his third consecutive loss. With both men having twice fallen to welterweight champion Kamaru Usman, it’s unclear where they head next in the division, and UFC President Dana White said as much when asked about the fighters at the evening’s post-fight press conference.
“I don’t know, that’s a good question,” White said. We knew that Colby would win tonight. On either one of them, even Colby, who won.”
White agreed with the notion that Covington is still a top contender in UFC. This was due to his dominance in the cage (Covington won 9 of his past 11 bouts, his only losses to Usman and Usman), as well as his charisma.
Every aspect of Covington’s brand was displayed for UFC 272 fight week to fight evening. White feels that people will have to accept White for who he truly is.
“The thing is too is that after a while no matter how much you hate him, you’ve at least got to respect him,” White said. “The guy keeps winning fights and he’s a tough dude.”
“I don’t know if I’ve had any bad words to say about him,” White continued when asked about past criticism of Covington. He’s a ******.,” I said. He’s an a******. Anybody disagree with that? That would be a reasonable opinion. Yes, but I still respect the .”
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Other than questioning Covington’s “man code” in relation to the fighter’s questionable promotional tactics, which has included personal insults aimed at the families of his opponents, White is optimistic that there are more big fights ahead for Covington.
Former UFC lightweight champion Dustin Poirier was named by Covington in his post-fight speech. This is an idea White supports, even though it does not make Covington’s future clearer.
” “I don’t really know what to say, but he is in an extremely strange situation after losing to Usman twice,” White stated. “Usman’s lapping everybody. We have to wait and see where it leads. Colby can talk with us and tell us what his true intentions are. You fight Poirier and then what? He has to go in some type of direction whether he’s gonna go to ’55 and fight at–I don’t know, we gotta talk.”
“Listen, if he stays at 170, he keeps winning, you’ve eventually got to give the kid a shot [at Usman] again,” White added.
Figuring out what’s next for the slumping Masvidal is even more difficult. He was 37 champion of the “BMF”, and Saturday’s main bout marked his 51 first professional fight.
Masvidal’s manager announced earlier this week that he had signed a new lucrative deal with UFC, making him one of its top five most highly paid fighters. It’s clear that promotion is committed to “Gamebred,” but that doesn’t mean that White has an idea of what’s next for him.
“We don’t think that far ahead,” White said. We sign the kid, and you don’t know the end of the world. It’s almost like you’ll ask me at every f press conference about what happens next. It’s not clear. I have to see how the fight plays out. How was it fought? And then I decide with the team what’s gonna happen next.”
