Colby Covington is trying to talk his way into a shot at the UFC middleweight championship.
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. But with two losses to Usman, Covington is currently outside of the 170-pound title picture and so, following his win, “Chaos” called for another feud to be settled, this time against one-time UFC interim lightweight champion Dustin Poirier. 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. But he doesn’t have a dance partner right now. I mean, some of the guys they’re trying to line him up with, it’s unoriginal. Why can Usman fight him and all the fans want that, but the guy that beat Usman, – I beat Usman. I beat Usman twice. Usman sucks, dude. Everybody knew in Madison Square Garden I won those last three rounds. It was an easy win for me, easy decision victory. Unanimous. So, why can’t I fight Adesanya? He can’t stop my wrestling. I’ll pick him up and drop him on his f****** head. He’s a cardio kickboxer. They got enough cardio kickboxers in women’s classes around the U.S. I could go join one of those as well but I decided to pick up hard grueling American wrestling. I don’t think Adesanya could stop my American wrestling, and I don’t think he’s that good a fighter.”
Adesanya recently defended his middleweight title against Robert Whittaker at UFC 271, taking home a unanimous decision win. Next up for “The Last Stylebender” appears to be a matchup 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. For his part, Adesanya has so far been cool to the idea of facing Covington until Covington at least wins one fight at middleweight, but Covington says not making a permanent move up, he just wants the one big 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.
“Or fight Dustin, the guy who said it’s on sight. He wants to come up to my weight class 170, he said this and that, he’s supposed to be some pound-for-pound great fighter. So, if you’re pound-for-pound great, then come fight. What are you so scared of, man?”