Colby Covington is as outspoken as they come, so fight fans shouldn’t be surprised to hear him take a shot at next weekend’s UFC 228 main event between current UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley and undefeated contender Darren Till.
According to Covington, who won the interim UFC welterweight title earlier this year only to see it taken away for needing time off, believes Woodley vs. Till is going to bomb at the box office. The confident wrestler also suggests that the pay-per-view (PPV) appeal would increase substantially if he was part of the main event.
“It’s short sighted. That fight’s not going to do 100,000 buys. Mark my words. If it does 100,000 buys, it will barely be over that,” Covington told FloCombat. “If they would have waited a couple of months, it’s going to do a minimum of 500,000 buys.”
While Woodley and Till haven’t proven to be big-time mainstream draws, they’re exciting fighters who should have no trouble bringing in more than 100,000 PPV buys. Covington may be overselling himself by saying a bout with Woodley would do 500,000 buys considering his last outing, a co-main event victory over Demian Maia at UFC 225, helped produce half that at 250,000 buys.
Covington also believes that the promotion added Woodley vs. Till to UFC 228 to help bolster a co-main event clash between UFC women’s flyweight champion Nicco Montano and former bantamweight title contender Valentina Shevchenko.
“I don’t know why they wanted to rush it, but unfortunately they needed a main event for that Dallas card ‘cause that women’s fight, no one knows who they are,” Covington said. “No one even knows they’re fighting. I don’t even know what the girls’ names are and I don’t care about that fight. So they needed a main event and everybody else is sucking on their thumbs and not ready to make the UFC and MMA great again.
”They had to put Tyron out there since he’s been faking injuries and hanging out in Hollywood like a little liberal soy boy.”
As far as a prediction for UFC 228’s headliner, Covington is reluctant to say you will win. Instead, “Chaos” is more focused on who will lose.
“I don’t know who’s going to win but I do know who’s going to lose, and that’s the fans,” Covington said. “They’re really going to lose with that fight. I hope Tyrone [sic] Woodley doesn’t f*ck this up. That’s the money fight. We’ve got a real beef. We used to train at American Top Team and I whooped his ass and he hasn’t been back since ‘cause he knows I’ll whoop his ass again.
”I hope he doesn’t f*ck this up and f*ck up this money fight but I’ll tell you who loses in all of this and that’s the fans.”
UFC 228 is scheduled to go down on Sept. 8 live on pay-per-view from inside American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, and will finally provide some clarity for the UFC’s stacked welterweight division.
For complete UFC 228 fight card news click here.