[autotag]Colby Covington[/autotag] wasn’t surprised by the outcome of UFC 251’s main event.
Welterweight champion [autotag]Kamaru Usman[/autotag] retained his title in a unanimous decision win over [autotag]Jorge Masvidal[/autotag] last weekend, after Usman was able to use his grappling to dominate most of the bout.
Covington (15-2 MMA, 9-2 UFC), who’s familiar with both men, had a vested interest in the fight, but was ultimately disappointed at the lackluster affair. He predicted Usman was going to win and didn’t think Masvidal would be able to handle the wrestling exchanges.
“I wanted to watch, but then I feel asleep,” Covington told MMA Junkie. “It was so boring, it was a hug-fest and they were playing footsie the whole time. That wasn’t a real fight. ‘Marty Fakenewsman’s’ stock went way down in that fight. He’s definitely the most boring fighter in the history of the UFC and we found out just what I said the whole time, ‘Street Judas’ Masvidal is all hype. He had his 15 seconds of fame, his 15 seconds of fame are up. He hit lightning in a bottle, but just we found out what everyone knew. He’s not a well-rounded fighter, he got exposed.
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“It’s pathetic that he’s out there asking for a rematch. He lost every round, dude you got destroyed. I won three rounds off ‘Marty Fakenewsman,’ you’re not on my level Jorge and you know that. Deep down inside, you could say whatever you want to the media and talk all that (expletive) before, guess what (expletive), I’m not at American Top Team no more, we could do this anytime.”
With both Covington and Masvidal (35-14 MMA, 12-7 UFC) coming off of losses to Usman and campaigning for another crack at the champion, a fight between the two seems the logical next move.
But at the UFC 251 post-fight press conference, Masvidal said he wasn’t interested in fighting Covington, citing the fact that Covington was stopped in his loss to Usman, while Masvidal went the distance on just six days’ notice.
Instead, Covington has been offered a fight with former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley on Aug. 22, but with Woodley asking for more time, the timetable will likely get pushed back to September or October.
There’s plenty of history between Covington and Woodley, but there’s even more between Covington and Masvidal. The latter duo spent eight years as main sparring partners at ATT and even lived together.
But things turned sour as best friends turned into rivals, with Covington eventually departing ATT.
Covington vs. Masvidal would be one of the most marketable fights the UFC could make, with plenty of footage online of both from their early days at ATT.
And Covington would be willing to face him next, but doesn’t think Masvidal would take the fight, claiming that he used to get the best of him every time in practice.
“If he ducks me so hard that he refuses to fight me and he just runs away, it just shows how he’s all hype,” Covington said. “He’s got 15 losses on his record. He’s a true definition of a journeyman in this sport. He’s always been the Robin to my Batman. He’s always been the JV to my varsity. It doesn’t have to happen because if it doesn’t happen, frankly, the fans and the people will know why it didn’t happen because he was scared and he didn’t want it to happen. So I would love for it to happen, it’s an easy fight. I would expose him.
“It would be a lot more entertaining. That last fight, that was the most boring fight of all time with ‘Marty Fakenewsman’ so if I get in there, he’ll never be the same person again and he knows that deep down. We sparred a lot of rounds for eight years. You can go on YouTube and look at the last time we fought. We fought in our living room, we used to live together so we fought every chance we got and he never won one second of those fights. They were pretty violent, I left him unconscious face down a couple of times.”