Colby Covington may be fighting for welterweight gold at UFC 296 but he definitely has designs on adding more titles to his resume including his desire to dethrone reigning middleweight king Sean Strickland.
Ahead of his fight with Leon Edwards on Saturday, Covington said he would “love to slap” Strickland while calling him “so f****** stupid” but it turns out his beef with the always outspoken 185-pounder runs a little deeper. Addressing Strickland on Wednesday during UFC 296 media day, Covington took aim at Strickland once again while trashing the UFC champion for his stance towards women.
“Can you not all relate?” Covington said while addressing Strickland. “I mean the guy said women only belong in the kitchen. If you told that to my friend Candace Owens, she would literally run circles around him and make him look like the amateur jabroni that he is.
“The guy’s the easiest fight in the division. There’s a reason he ran away from my division. Because he couldn’t cut it. So I’m just speaking on what everybody believes and thinks as well.”
Of course, Strickland is no stranger to making controversial statements such as his declaration that “ee need to put women back in the kitchen” and remove them from the workforce. Strickland has also slammed women’s MMA and even got into a back-and-forth with former UFC champion Valentina Shevchenko.
Somehow, Covington is now championing that cause as part of the reason he has such an issue with Strickland. Then again as much as Covington might want that fight, he’s not ready to jump up to middleweight just yet.
“Everybody knows 170 is the premiere division, it’s the toughest division in the UFC,” Covington said. “So this is what most people on Earth walk around at, about 170 pounds. So of course, [Khamzat Chimaev] was scared to fight, there were some other people that were scared to fight. Now we’re here. All I can do is fight who they put in front of me.
“I want to go for that triple championship. I think I could do it. I can make [155 pounds] and I can make [185 pounds] and that’s the easiest fight if Sean Strickland is still there. So I may look to go to beat Sean first and then go down to 55 and beat that mongoloid. But I have unfinished business at 170 and the only way to make this division great again is to be active and clear out the division first. So until I do that, I’m not going to entertain anybody else.”
Assuming he gets past Edwards and becomes undisputed champion, Covington will undoubtedly have a long line of contenders champing at the bit to get at him.
Perhaps the name at the top of that list is Belal Muhammad, who currently sits on a 10-fight undefeated streak and he’ll weigh-in as the backup for the main event on Saturday. While that role seemingly solidifies Muhammad as next in line for the title shot, Covington really doesn’t have any interest in facing him.
“No, who wants to fight a racist?” Covington said about Muhammad. “I mean could you imagine if I said someone earned something off the color of their skin? That’s absolutely despicable. It’s disgusting. That guy hasn’t deserved anything. It’s not my fault he’s not a star. You have to make yourself a star. I’m the one that did the things that needed to be done to become a superstar like I have. What has he done? He hasn’t done anything.
“He’s out there race baiting saying ‘you earned this because of the color of your skin, it’s white privilege.’ Are you f****** kidding me? Dude, he’s not getting no title shot. There will be no title shot for him.”
Despite his promise that Muhammad won’t get a chance at becoming champion, Covington almost immediately contradicted himself while stating that he’ll ultimately fight whoever the UFC puts in front of him regardless of the name.
“There’s a reason why I’m in this position because I say yes, yes, yes to every single fight,” Covington said. “I’ve never said no. There’s no other guy in the history of this sport that said more yes’ to a fight than Colby ‘Chaos’ Covington.
“Colby’s a yes man. He loves this company. He’ll say yes to any fight. I just want to make the biggest and best fights for the fans and for the company and that’s what I’ll do when I’m champion.”