“You shouldn’t be happy or praising yourself for beating a journeyman like that.”
Colby Covington was not impressed with Kamaru Usman’s performance in Jacksonville, Florida last night.
Usman, the reigning welterweight champion, knocked out Jorge Masvidal in the UFC 261 main event to retain his title. But ‘Chaos’ says he would have got the finish much sooner, labelling ‘Gamebred’ a journeyman fighter.
“It took eight minutes longer than I would finish Jorge Masvidal in every time we trained,” Covington said on the ESPN post-fight show (h/t Nolan King of MMA Junkie). “That guy is a journeyman. What’s he got: 15, 20 losses on his record? You shouldn’t be happy or praising yourself for beating a journeyman like that. There’s a reason he’s a backstabber. He’s a street Judas. He’s a bum. If I lost the next 12 fights in a row, I’d still have a better record than journeyman Masvidal.”
Dana White has confirmed Covington is next in line to fight Usman for the title and, this time, the latter says the rematch will play out much differently.
“It’s a different style matchup when I fight ‘Marty,’” Covington, who suffered a fifth-round TKO loss to Usman at UFC 245, told Megan Olivi. “He knows he can’t take me down. I’m going to take him down into deep waters. I’m going to take him down and I’m going to finish him. There are no more fake nut shots next time. … I have new coaches now. I have a new team behind me. Before, there was so much drama at my old gym. People were screaming at me. I couldn’t get my training time in. Now, I have Daniel Valverde (and) Cesar Carneiro over at MMA Masters.
“We’re getting better every single day. My striking is on a whole other level. What has to go different is I have to put a higher pace on him next time. I didn’t put enough pace on him last time and just keep my hands up. I know I’m going to get my hand raised when I fight him.”
Covington, the No. 1-ranked welterweight contender in the world, is expected to rematch Usman later this year, although no date or venue has been confirmed.