Former interim welterweight champ Colby Covington will get another chance to fight for the title when he goes up against current divisional champ Leon Edwards at UFC 296 in December, and though some feel that his recent record means he doesn’t deserve the opportunity, ‘Chaos’ argues that Edwards had an easier route to the belt.
“He had the right matchups at the right time to get to that point in his career,” Covington told UFC.com. “He fought a lightweight washout in Nate Diaz and sat out almost two years to get his title shot. I don’t think he warranted getting a title shot after beating that guy.
“He just cried ‘I deserve this, I deserve that’ instead of just going out there and working for it or earning it like I did. I had to earn it the hard way. No one gave me this spot to fight for the undisputed title. I had to earn it. I had to go the unconventional way because the straight-ahead way wasn’t available. He didn’t earn it the hard way like I did, and Dec. 16 he’s going to find out that he’s going to get broken by the American dream.”
In all fairness though, Edwards was undefeated in 10 UFC fights when he was finally granted a UFC title shot, by which point in addition to Diaz he had also beaten the likes of Rafael dos Anjos, Vicente Luque, Donald Cerrone, Gunnar Nelson and Bryan Barberena, and of course he’s since gone on to successful beat long-time champion Kamaru Usman twice to win and defend the belt.
As for Covington, his latest title shot comes off a win over the now-retired Jorge Masvidal almost two years ago, and hasn’t fought since, while two of his previous three fights prior to that were losses to Kamaru Usman.
However, the 35-year-old Covington insists that he was trying to get fights with other big names during his lengthy lay-off, but they wouldn’t agree to face him.
“This sitting out bullsh*t has been tough because I’ve wanted to fight,” Covington said. “Every fight I’ve accepted. Against Khamzat Chimaev, Dustin Poirier, and some other guys in the division that the UFC were trying to match up, but they didn’t want to fight.
“It just made me hungrier, and it made me realize how much I love this sport. I don’t feel alive until I’m in that UFC octagon. That’s when I feel the most alive in my life, and I feel like that’s the true meaning.”
