Michael Bisping and Colby Covington have had their fair share of back-and-forth interactions. But even “The Count” can give credit when it’s due.
It was recently announced that Covington would get his long-awaited welterweight title shot when he challenges Kamaru Usman in the main event of UFC 245 in December. It followed over a year of failed negotiations and protests from Covington.
Most recently, “Chaos” rejected a contract and called the UFC’s negotiations “slave labor” as well. However, things changed shortly afterwards as the fight was finally booked.
And for Bisping, that means Covington was vindicated:
“I’ve done a pretty good job of sh*tting all over Colby Covington, but now I’m gonna retract my statements because he played it well,” Bisping said on his podcast (via MMA News). “‘Cause I said, ‘alright he wanted the title fight forever, but he turned it down.’ He was supposed to fight Woodley, but apparently he was injured. So there was that whole thing, so it didn’t make Colby look good.
“Then they offered him Kamaru Usman, apparently turned it down cause he wanted more money. Then they offered him Tyron Woodley and he turned that down. Now he’s fighting Usman after all at the end-of-the-year show.”
Bisping can also understand why Covington turned down a reported Woodley fight — especially as it would have been far more riskier than waiting on getting a title fight made:
“To be honest, now it looks like Colby played it correctly because he’s got the title fight,” Bisping continued. “So number one, I understand him turning down the Woodley fight. Why you gonna take Woodley on? Woodley’s a tough fight for anybody. He’s a very, very tough fight. He was the champion up until very, very recently. So if they offer you a title fight because the money wasn’t right, for the UFC to then offer you Woodley that doesn’t make sense for Covington.
“Now I was quick to throw him under a bus and say, ‘this guy doesn’t wanna fight anybody.’ But it seems like perhaps, and I don’t know this is no circle of trust issues here, one would assume that they went back to the negotiating table and all parties are happy.”
What do you make of Bisping’s comments?
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