Kamaru Usman says his animosity towards Colby Covington is less ahead of UFC 268 compared to what it was back at UFC 245.
Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington have had a great rivalry for years. The two have taken shots at one another repeatedly. It got heated and personal prior to their UFC 245 bout, but in the end, Usman ended up getting a fifth-round TKO.
Now, ahead of UFC 268, both Usman and Covington haven’t trash-talked one another all that much. For the champ, he says that is because the animosity is less on his end because he already defeated Covington, meaning his trash talk is no longer needed.
“It’s less for me. Because you get to a certain point—and you’ve been here, champ-champ. You’ve been here,” Usman said to Daniel Cormier on his YouTube channel. “It gets to a certain point you’re just competing. You know what we compete for. We want to compete, and get the bag, and go home, and go lay up with our kids. That’s what we want. So it gets to that point. He’s still chasing that. He’s chasing that feeling that we get now because we have become champ, we’ve defended, we are known worldwide as the man. And that’s the feeling he is still chasing and that he will never feel as long as I am in the way.
“So it is what it is. For me, I just have a calm reserve because a jackass will say anything. And that’s where he’s at right now,” Usman continued. “He’ll say anything just to still try to stay in that spot and stay relevant, to where I don’t have to do that. When it’s time to go to work, I show up and I go to work, and I’ve shown it time and time again.”
Even though Kamaru Usman says his animosity towards Colby Covington is less, thus the fight week potentially being less hostile this time around, the fight at Madison Square Garden will be a massive fight nonetheless.
Who do you think wins, Kamaru Usman or Colby Covington?