The Covington that forced his way to the top of the welterweight division off endless pressure, cardio, and grit was nowhere to be seen in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
The Leon Edwards vs. Colby Covington welterweight title fight at UFC 296 was looking like it had the potential to be a knock down, drag out war. Covington was coming in firing on all cylinders, talking the most foul trash he’s ever talked. Which is impressive for “Chaos” given his history. His opponent was clearly hot and bothered, ripe to abandon his gameplan should things get heated.
But when the chips were down and it was time for Colby to perform, the former interim welterweight champion stalled out. He spent the better part of four rounds staring at Leon Edwards as “Rocky” picked him apart from distance and shucked off the rare half-hearted takedown attempt (watch the highlights here).
Despite Covington’s success at getting under Edwards’ skin, Leon fought an extremely measured fight. It’s what we’re used to seeing from him. His performance against Nate Diaz wasn’t a crowd pleaser, but it earned him a 49-46 win. Those were the scores again tonight at UFC 296 — Covington’s only success came in the fifth round after Edwards went for a risky triangle attempt, ending up in guard.
The Colby of old would have forsaken guard and attempted to advance ferociously. The Colby we saw in the T-Mobile Arena tonight? He was content to hold the position so he could claim a moral victory at the final bell. You could practically feel 16,000 people roll their eyes when he put his hands up at the end of the fight as if he’d won.
In his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, “Chaos” blamed ring rust for the poor performance. Covington hasn’t fought since a March 2022 win over Jorge Masvidal, and many questioned whether he deserved this shot at the welterweight title off that victory.
‘Deserve’ doesn’t mean much when it comes to title shots in the UFC any more. But if he’d earned his No.1 contender spot by staying more active, maybe tonight would have been different. Maybe we would have seen a Colby that wasn’t a ghost of his former self. One that had more to offer than empty bravado and a bunch of poorly delivered trash talk.
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