Michael Bisping thinks Colby Covington did a great job promoting UFC 272.
Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping thinks Colby Covington is one of the best promoters in the game.
‘Chaos’ turned ‘heel’, as Bisping puts it, back in 2017 when the self-proclaimed ‘King of Miami’ called Brazil a ‘dump’ and its people ‘filthy animals’ following his lopsided decision victory over Demian Maia in the UFC Fight Night 119 co-main event.
Since then Covington has targeted everyone from ‘nerds and virgins’ to just about everyone on the UFC roster including ex-teammates Dustin Poirier and Jorge Masvidal.
Covington beat the latter a couple of weeks ago at UFC 272, and Bisping thinks the former interim welterweight champion did a great job of hyping the fight and turning it into a real grudge match that just about every casual fan wanted to tune in and watch.
“I think he does a great job,” Bisping, who used to be somewhat of a heel himself, told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour (h/t MMA Fighting). “I think he really sells it. I think he gets people very, very much interested. He is a heel. I did an interview with him last week for BT Sport and it was a very compelling interview, very honest and open of him.”
“The reality is, Colby’s an incredible fighter, he really is. He’s just unlucky in some ways that Kamaru Usman is the champion and he’s around at the moment,” Bisping added. “If it wasn’t for that, he’d probably be the champ. I think he brings a lot of excitement. That fight against Usman at Madison Square Garden, I loved every second of that press conference and that was because of Colby, because of what he brought to the table. It’s the same thing with Jorge, same thing every single time, and if I was a fan, I’d have bought that pay-per-view after watching that. So he’s doing what he’s setting out to do. He’s promoting the fight, he’s hyping the fight, he’s trying to put a little doubt in his opponent’s mind, not sure if he’s successful in that because I think a lot of people now know he’s just playing this character, but promoting his fight, 100 percent he does a fantastic job.”
Covington continued to embrace the heel role in his UFC 272 post-fight interview, calling for a fight against ‘Louisiana swamp trash’ a.k.a. Dustin Poirier following his lopsided unanimous decision victory over ‘Street Judas’ Jorge Masvidal. Covington is currently #1 in the UFC welterweight rankings.