Colby Covington is not known to have a filter when placed in front of a camera, and he certainly continued to live up to that reputation and then some when discussing some details behind his recent fight negotiations.
Last Saturday at UFC Vegas 21, Leon Edwards took on Belal Muhammad in the night’s main event. The fight ended anticlimactically in a no-contest following a vicious accidental eye poke from Edwards, but if the UFC had their way, this fight would not have had an ending at all because it would have never begun. That is because their first choice in a replacement opponent for Leon Edwards at this event after Khamzat Chimaev was forced to withdraw was not Belal Muhammad but none other than Colby Covington.
Covington turned down the fight, citing a lack of desire to participate in a “charity fight.” But in a Monday interview with Submission Radio, he zeroed in on UFC strawweight Polyana Viana as one of the leading reasons he was too busy to accept the bout against Edwards on short notice.
“There wasn’t much talks. I was busy balls deep in Polyana Viana, so to get me off the couch in three weeks’ notice to fight some Leon Scott guy, it was gonna be a price tag,” Covington disclosed. “I wanted a little bit more than what was in my contract. I just wasn’t gonna show up for a normal paycheck to fight that guy, for me to show up on short notice and fight that guy.
“You know, the way I fight guys, I redline it every time I fight. So when I fight, you know you’re getting a Ferrari that’s coming forward, high octane, high energy. He’s coming to fight and bring the fight. So if I want to fight at my best, I need a full training camp. So that fight was never gonna happen unless the UFC was gonna pay for it to happen. Because like I said before, I was with Polyana Viana. I got better things to do than show up on some irrelevant card against some irrelevant guy named ‘Leon Scott.’”
It should be noted that in the comments section under the above photograph that Covington posted on social media, Viana stated that she and Covington are only friends and that she already has a boyfriend. In this interview, Covington implied that they are friends with benefits and that their time shared together played a role in his unavailability to fight Leon Edwards on short notice.
Covington Shares Details Of Private Talks With Dana White
The uncensored nature of Colby Covington’s comments was not limited to the salacious, off-color remarks regarding Polyana Viana. He also held nothing back in regards to discussions between himself and Dana White about the UFC welterweight title picture. Covington stated that he spoke to White about receiving a title shot, only for White to tell him that they were putting together a fight between Usman and Masvidal. Covington would then pull back to the curtains to provide the ungarnished details of his discussion with White.
“Of course I mentioned the Marty Fakenewsman rematch,” Covington said. “And their response was, ‘Oh, we’re gonna do the Marty vs. Jorge fight.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about, Dana? After I starched Tyron Woodley back in September and had the president of the United States calling during the most heated election in the history of the United States, he called on your ESPN channel and on your UFC live TV stream when I’m fighting, I got you all those ratings, and you promised me Jorge Masvidal. You said, ‘Oh, it’s you and Jorge. That’s the fight to make. Everybody wants to see that. That’s the fight that people want to see.’”
Covington went on to share that the reason White gave for selecting Masvidal as Kamaru Usman‘s next opponent is due to the fact that Masvidal only had six days’ notice prior to his UFC 251 fight against Usman. According to Covington, he gave White the same response he shared in another recent interview where he argued that the six days’ notice explanation is fraudulent due to Masvidal helping Dustin Poirier prepare for his fight against Dan Hooker and also because he was training with wrestler Bo Nickal and that both occurred within the same time frame as UFC 251.
As far as future fight negotiations go, Covington is going to watch how everything unfolds at the top of the division before making his next move.
“The fight’s not done with (Masvidal) and Marty Fakenewsman, so I’m gonna wait to see what happens until that fight is booked, and done, and sealed, and then I’ll make my decisions from there,” Covington stated.
What are your thoughts on Colby Covington’s uncensored documentation of his recent fight negotiations with the UFC?