Ever since winning the Ultimate Fighter back in 2015, Kamaru Usman has been unstoppable. The rising welterweight is currently 6-0 and looks to add another win under his belt against Emil Meek, a bout rescheduled for UFC St. Louis on January 14
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However, if it was up to Usman, he would be facing Colby Covington, the controversial fighter who’s made remarks about Brazil’s fans being “filthy animals”:
“We were offered Colby Covington, he said no,” Usman said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “Right away he said, ‘No, I don’t want anything to do with that guy.’”
According to Usman, the UFC made two more attempts at putting the bout together, and each time, Covington turned it down.
“They tried to make fight again two weeks later,” Usman said. “Then something transpired, I don’t know what it was, but they tried to make fight again, and Colby said no, absolutely not. Then for the third time they offered it, this was supposed to be my main event, Jan. 14, my main event. Obviously you see why it took so long get a headliner for that card. It was supposed to be me and Colby to headline that card. But he turned it down.”
Usman noted that there’s been a pattern to Covington’s behavior: Usman believes Covington is deliberately targeting older fighters who are on their way down to build his name, and doesn’t want any part of another fighter in his prime.
“Colby only wants to go after the guys he feels that are old and have an athletic advantage and cardio advantage to maybe try to push them into deep waters,” Usman said. “He knows that plays no part with me. You can’t out-wrestle me, you can’t out-strike me, you don’t have more power than me. Basically he sees this, he’s so afraid to where he was running to nobody but all the older guys who are on their way down. That’s all they want.”
Usman does give Covington credit, to a degree, for finding an angle that gets the fans to talk about him.
“He’s actually getting people to care about him,” Usman said. “Before that, no one cared about him. Absolutely nothing. He would win fight after fight, but no one cared. But now that he actually showed his true colors, people are starting to care about him. So the fight symbolizes more than just me going in there and stomping his ass. It’s going to be different.”
See the rest of the interview below.