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The UFC’s Welterweight Division is currently being ruled by champion Kamaru Usman. He’s coming off a late stoppage TKO victory over Colby Covington at UFC 245 back in December. There’s talk of his next title defense being against Jorge Masvidal possibly during the UFC’s showcase summer event – International Fight Week. As of now however that’s just talk because nothing has been announced regarding his next fight. Masvidal is hugely popular and is on an impressive three fight win streak. Even with those credentials he shouldn’t be next for Usman, it should be a rematch with Covington. Usman didn’t specify when but he himself acknowledged that he’d like to fight Colby again.
While being interviewed on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast back on January 27, 2020 Usman said the following:
“If I didn’t take too much from him, I might see him again to be honest. It’s clear that we are the two best guys in the division. I look forward to seeing him again.”
Their fight was extremely close on the scorecards before being stopped by referee Marc Goddard with less than a minute left in Round 5. Going into the final round Usman was up 3-1 on one card, Covington was up 3-1 on another card, and the other judge had it 2-2. Ultimately Usman wore down a game Covington by dropping him twice within a span of 8 seconds late in the final round prior to the fight being stopped. Colby is adamant that it was a bad stoppage by referee Marc Goddard. Whether it was or not he still would’ve lost a unanimous decision had the fight gone the distance.
Colby Covington was in the news recently campaigning to be a last second replacement for Leon Edwards against Tyron Woodley. Edwards was to face Woodley in the main event of the now cancelled UFC Fight Night London card. The UFC was scrambling to relocate the event back to the US but ultimately wasn’t able to due to the new guidelines put in place to halt the potential spread of Covid-19 or Coronavirus.
The UFC has now followed in the footsteps with basically the rest of sports world in putting their product on hold. Dana White has indicated that the much anticipated Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Tony Ferguson Lightweight Title fight will proceed as planned on April 18, 2020. As of now the location is unknown but White indicated it most likely will take place outside of the US. Once business resumes back to normal there should be a lot of stacked cards filled up with many of the fights / fighters that were cancelled. In the meantime Colby Covington along with the rest of the UFC roster will need to sit back and wait to see what happens going forward. When that happens he deserves a second chance at the welterweight title based on his performance in his first fight against Kamaru Usman.
Anthony Sotelo for MMAInformed
