With minutes left in Kamaru Usman’s one sided domination of Tyron Woodley at UFC 235, Dana White left cageside to talk to Colby Covington. According to White, he was there to try and keep the peace. He confirmed Covington would get the first shot at new champ Kamaru Usman … so long as he didn’t do anything crazy that started another post-fight Vegas brawl.
Even with that request, things almost kicked off between Covington and Usman regardless. Here’s footage of that showing Kamaru trying to get to Colby, only to have stonefaced security step in and effectively shepard them into opposide sides of the arena.
Kamaru Usman went straight after Colby Covington #UFC235 pic.twitter.com/gLuYvYeKGc
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) March 3, 2019
Staff working the event had been on high alert all night, and it paid off. We imagine they knew all about Colby Covington and his tantalizingly punchable face.
That wasn’t the end of the story, though. Kamaru Usman took a page out of Covington’s book and tracked Colby down to the buffet line at the Palms Casino, where a brawl nearly broke out in the middle of a bunch of confused tourists and families. TMZ Sports has that video, which you can watch here:
You can see Usman and his manager Ali Abdelaziz yelling at Covington while bystanders plead for calm. A bunch of pushing and shoving begins and Colby ends up in front of Abdelaziz, who takes a swing at him.
“You’re not even a fighter!” Covington exclaims.
If all parties manage to avoid arrest and/or getting suspended, a fight between Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington should end up going down over the next couple of months. No date has been set, but the UFC might want to consider making it happen fast, before these two guys end up duking it out in an Applebees or something.